Kyle leaned forward. “Direct link between him and Mira?”
“Not yet,” Flint said. “Mira was too far down the food chain for public-facing contact. But if something was wrong in thatdivision, it would have lived somewhere in the structure beneath him.”
“And now?” Gina asked.
“Now he’s pushing hard for a major Navy contract expected to be awarded this year.”
“How major?” Lachlan asked.
“Billions,” Flint said. “The kind of contract that makes old questions inconvenient.”
Gina’s eyes narrowed. “Build the org chart.”
“Already started,” Flint said. “Mira’s supervisors, program managers, finance people, procurement contacts, subcontractors. Anyone who touched her division during the window around the encrypted account.”
“Elissa,” Gina said. “Can you dig without alerting them?”
“Carefully,” Elissa said. “Their security is impressive, and I don’t want to trip anything at LRH or NCIS. Either would be extremely bad juju. For now, I’m staying with public records, contract awards, lobbying disclosures, and corporate filings.”
“Anything useful?” Kyle asked.
“Useful, yes. Conclusive, no. Give me time. A couple of subcontractors that don’t look wrong on the surface, but they’re sitting in places that make me want to look twice. I need time to trace them.”
“Time’s the one thing we might not have,” Kyle said quietly.
Lachlan took the pen casing out of his mouth. “You think whoever ransacked Maren’s place is still looking.”
“Yes,” Gina said. “Because from their perspective, Maren’s behavior changed after the break-in.”
Colin frowned. “She came home to a ransacked house. Of course she was going to change her behavior.”
“She called the police, exactly as expected,” Gina said. “That part makes sense. Even going to a hotel for the night. But then she got a warning, packed Juni into the car in the middle of thenight, ditched her phone, bought a burner, avoided GPS, and drove straight to Watchdog Security in Lyons, Colorado.”
Colin’s hands curled into fists on his thighs.
“They think she has something,” he said.
“Or they think she knows something,” Lachlan said. “Which might be worse.”
“She doesn’t,” Colin said. “Maren said Mira didn’t leave anything. No diary, no notes, no deathbed confession. Just Juni.”
“Theydon’t know that,” Gina said. “And the police report didn’t put the target on her. The target was already there. But it may have lit up her trail for anyone watching official channels.”
Colin’s stomach dropped.
“The laptop,” he said.
Gina nodded. “Hospital-issued, stolen from a private residence. Maren reported it. Her supervisor locked down her credentials. That was the correct move. But if anyone has access to the right law enforcement, insurance, or corporate reporting channels, that report confirms Maren Walsh is scared, mobile, and missing property from a targeted search.”
“She did exactly what she was supposed to do,” Colin said.
“Yes,” Gina said. “And someone dangerous may be watching the systems that responsible people use. That doesn’t mean they have eyes on every street corner. But police reports, hospital compliance, insurance, corporate incident logs? Those are the places ordinary people leave tracks.”
That pissed him off more.
Not at Gina. Not at Kyle. Not even at Mira, not exactly.
At whoever had turned Maren’s ordinary life into a trap where doing the right thing might get her and Juni killed.
