Chapter 3 - My Brother Wasn't the Only One Trying to Destroy MeCurtis spent the next six hours in a locked interview room.
I spent them discovering my brother was only a piece of something much larger.
The judge suspended proceedings.
The courthouse was placed under temporary federal security because the attack on General Reeves potentially involved an attempt to interfere with a witness and compromise military records.
By evening, the story had already escaped.
Reporters filled the sidewalk.
The same channels that had spent weeks calling me a fake soldier were suddenly running banners asking whether I had been framed.
I didn't care.
I wanted five minutes alone with my mother.
I finally got them in a conference room.
Mom sat across from me without makeup, jewelry or the careful confidence she had worn before the jury.
She looked ten years older.
Rachel remained near the door.
“You knew,” I said.
Mom's eyes filled.
“Yes.”
“All of it?”
“No.”
“How much?”
“That you served. That you were wounded. That your records were complicated.”
“And you told twelve strangers I invented everything.”
“I was terrified.”
“So was I.”
“I know.”
“No, Mom. You don't.”
My voice broke despite every effort to control it.
“I sat there while you told people the worst years and proudest years of my life were fake.”
She reached for me.
I moved my hand away.
She cried.
Then she told me what Curtis had done.
After Dad died, Curtis took control of the company accounts.
At first, Mom thought he was simply ambitious.
Then she discovered irregular transfers.
Curtis found out she knew.
He showed her photographs of my apartment.
My car.
Rachel leaving her office.
My schedule.
“He knew where you went every day,” Mom whispered.
Then he played her an audio recording.
General Reeves discussing his plan to testify.
Curtis told her Reeves would never reach the witness stand.
Mom believed him.
And two days later, Reeves disappeared.
“So you lied.”
“Yes.”
“To save me?”
“Yes.”
“You could've told the police.”
“He said he had people inside the department.”
Rachel leaned forward.
“Did he name anyone?”
Mom shook her head.
“But he mentioned a man named Dalton.”
That name meant nothing to me.
It meant something to Rachel.
“Victor Dalton?”
Mom looked up.
“Yes.”
Rachel swore softly.
Victor Dalton was Carter Aerospace's chief financial officer.
He had served beside my father for eighteen years.
He had taught Curtis and me to play poker when we were teenagers.
When Dad died, Dalton gave the eulogy.
I felt sick.
Rachel immediately contacted federal investigators.
Within an hour they discovered Dalton had boarded a private aircraft that afternoon.
Destination unknown.
We weren't dealing with an angry younger brother anymore.
We were dealing with an organized theft scheme.
The next morning, federal agents searched Carter Aerospace.
What they found changed the case completely.
The missing two million dollars was only the amount someone wanted auditors to notice.
Almost twenty-eight million had moved through subsidiaries during the previous four years.
My identity had been used as a cover because my restricted military history created confusion.
Someone had built a fictional civilian version of me.
Bank accounts.
Consulting contracts.
Electronic signatures.
Everything designed to make it appear Evelyn Carter had returned from deployments periodically to authorize transactions.
But one problem existed.
I hadn't been in the country on several signing dates.
The sealed military records that once hurt me now became my strongest alibi.
On one date I supposedly transferred $600,000 in Virginia, I had been at a NATO facility in Germany.
On another, I had been hospitalized at Walter Reed.
On a third, I had been aboard a military aircraft over the Atlantic.
Curtis knew.
And Dalton knew.
They had counted on those records remaining inaccessible.
Rachel spread the timelines across the conference table.
“They chose you because they believed you couldn't defend yourself without violating security agreements.”
I stared at the documents.
Curtis hadn't merely hated me.
He had engineered my life into a hiding place.
Late that afternoon, Agent Marcus Bell from the FBI entered.
His expression told me there was more.
“We searched Mr. Carter's residence.”
“And?”
“We found a burner phone.”
“Messages?”
“Some.”
“To Dalton?”
Bell nodded.
“And to someone identified only as R.”
General Reeves, now wearing a bandage above his eyebrow, sat beside me.
“What kind of messages?”
Agent Bell hesitated.
“Operational.”
I hated the word instantly.
“One message discussed making the collision involving General Reeves look accidental.”
Mom covered her mouth.
Another discussed my arrest.
Another celebrated the media coverage questioning my military record.
Then Bell placed a photograph on the table.
It showed my father.
Alive.
Standing outside Carter Aerospace's hangar six days before his fatal heart attack.
Beside him was Victor Dalton.
They appeared to be arguing.
Rachel asked, “Where did this come from?”
“Curtis's phone.”
Bell placed another image beside it.
A screenshot of a text.
Dad found the transfers.
Dalton's reply:
Then we have a bigger problem than Evelyn.
I stared at it.
My father had died unexpectedly at fifty-nine.
Doctors said cardiac arrest.
No autopsy.
Why would there have been?
He had a family history of heart disease.
Agent Bell looked at me carefully.
“We're requesting the medical records.”
Mom whispered, “No.”
Nobody answered.
She stood abruptly.
“No. Curtis is selfish. He's greedy. He's cruel. But he wouldn't—”
Bell's face stopped her.
My mother slowly sat down.
I realized then that there are moments when a family doesn't break.
It reveals that it has been broken for years.
That evening, Curtis asked to speak with me.
Rachel told me not to go.
I went anyway.
He sat behind reinforced glass wearing a gray detention uniform.
No suit.
No confidence.
Just my little brother.
“You look terrible,” he said.
“So do you.”
He smiled.
“There she is.”
“Why?”
“You always ask questions like Dad.”
“Did you kill him?”
The smile disappeared.
“No.”
“Did Dalton?”
Curtis looked toward the camera in the corner.
Then back at me.
“You think this is about money?”
“Twenty-eight million dollars seems like money.”
“Dalton doesn't care about twenty-eight million.”
“What does he care about?”
Curtis leaned closer to the glass.
“The company builds guidance systems, Evie.”
My childhood nickname.
He hadn't used it in fifteen years.
“So?”
“So Dad discovered components were being diverted.”
“To where?”
Curtis's jaw tightened.
“You know why your records were useful?”
“To frame me.”
“No.”
He shook his head.
“Because Dalton knew exactly what unit you'd worked around overseas.”
Cold spread through me.
“How?”
“He had access to Dad's correspondence.”
I stared at him.
Curtis whispered:
“He wasn't using your identity just to steal money.”
“Then why?”
“To hide shipments.”
“What shipments?”
He looked genuinely afraid.
“Military components.”
My pulse slowed.
“Where were they going?”
Before he could answer, a violent crash came from the hallway.
The lights flickered.
Curtis jumped up.
A fire alarm began screaming.
A deputy shouted outside.
Rachel's voice echoed somewhere beyond the door.
Then Curtis pressed both palms against the glass.
“Listen to me!”
Smoke began crawling beneath the doorway behind him.
“Dalton knows you're close!”
A guard rushed toward Curtis.
Curtis ignored him.
“He has someone inside the courthouse!”
The lights died.
Complete darkness.
May you like
Then I heard a gunshot.
And my brother screamed my name.
Related Stories
