Maren blinked. “I did?”
“Losing your original phone means your current location isn’t broadcasting from a device that’s already been flagged,” Elissa said. “The call record still exists with the carrier regardless. Number, timestamp, cell tower routing—I can pull all of it without the physical device. What I lose is some metadata on your end, but I can work around that.” A brief pause. “Good instinct, Maren. Seriously.”
Colin watched Maren’s shoulders relax just a fraction, as if she’d been braced for impact and now she realized she wasn’t going to get hit after all. It killed him to watch.
“Okay,” she said. “Okay, good. I can still call my voicemail if everyone wants to hear it?”
“We do,” Gina said.
Maren pulled out her burner, and a minute later, the conference room filled with the voice of a dead man.
“Maren, you don’t know me, but I worked with your sister. My name’s not important. Probably better if you don’t know. If you’re getting this recording, It means they got me. I’m sorry, but you and Juniper are in grave danger. Your sister was brave and she loved you and her daughter more than anything. She was part of an NCIS investigation and her death was no accident. By now someone may have found you. Don’t go home. Take Juniper and go to Watchdog Security in Lyons, Colorado. There you’ll find Arden Volker. She’s Sean Volker’s sister and Sean isJuniper’s father. Trust no one else.” Another pause. “I’m afraid Sean is dead, too. I’m sorry. I’m sorry for everything.”
By the time the recording finished, Colin was all-in, kid or no kid. He could only imagine how terrifying it was for a civilian to receive a call like that.
“What can you tell me about your sister’s employer?” Elissa asked.
“She worked for LRH Defense Systems. She was in contract administration.” Maren pulled in a slow breath. “She’d worked there about six years. She liked it, or—I thought she liked it. She never complained.” She looked at the table. “I’m realizing there’s a lot of things I thought I knew about my sister.”
“Did she ever mention anyone she worked with?” Flint asked. “Names, departments? Maybe we can track this guy down that way.”
“We’ll look into NCIS, too,” Gina added. “He said Mira was working with them, but he might have been, too.”
“She never really talked about the people she worked with. She kept work and home pretty separate.” Maren’s jaw tightened briefly, then relaxed.
Colin watched her work through it—the anger surfacing and being stuffed back down. She was furious at her sister. She was also doing her level best not to show it in front of strangers. He recognized that tightrope walk because he’d done enough of it himself.
“Her accident,” Gina said, gently. “Tell us what you were told.”
“They said it was a hit and run.” Any residual anger Maren might have been holding drained out of her voice. “She was walking through a parking garage at night when someone hit her. They never found the driver.”
“Cameras?” Elissa asked.
Maren looked up. “Broken, and no parking attendant on duty. The police said there was a lot of vandalism in the area. Nothing they could do.”
Elissa’s sigh came over the speaker loud and clear. “And that long ago, It would be hard to find any footage from cameras belonging to other companies, but I could try. Send me the address of the parking garage.”
“I will.”
“Was this a place where she usually hung out? Or, was it out of the ordinary for her to be there? Nighttime alone in a parking garage sends up all sorts of red flags for me.”
“I wish I could tell you if it was out of the ordinary, but again, Mira had gotten pretty secretive about her life. Now I know why.”
“That sucks. I’m so sorry,” Elissa said. “So, Flint,” Elissa said. “First pass—LRH Defense Systems, Mira Walsh.”
“Already started,” Flint said.
“Of course you did. You were trained by the best.” Then she added in a mock-whisper, “One of them was me.”
Flint grinned but didn’t look up. “Keep telling yourself that.”
“Sassy! I love it. Now, I’ll also grab whatever I can find on the call routing, and even though it’s a long shot, old footage around the parking garage.”
Kyle cleared his throat. “Maren. For tonight—and for the foreseeable—we’re going to set you and Juni up in one of our safehouses on the property. It’s not far from here, just further up the main road past the offices.”
Colin caught Kyle giving Arden the briefest look. She did not look happy, and he could probably figure out why. Arden was notorious for hosting parties, and nothing made her happier than house guests. What Colin couldn’t figure out was why Maren and Juni weren’t staying at the ranch. Then Arden’s gaze flicked to Gina and he knew.
They don’t trust her yet.
