Chapter 4 - Someone Was Watching the HouseThe doctors wanted me to stay overnight.
I wanted to leave.
Agent Campbell solved the argument.
“You’re staying.”
I looked at her from the hospital bed.
“That sounded less like medical advice and more like an arrest.”
“It’s protective custody with better pillows.”
Dad stood beside the window.
“What exactly did Eric say?”
Campbell opened a tablet.
“At 4:17 this afternoon, your son accessed a secondary messaging account investigators had been monitoring.”
Dad flinched at the phrase your son.
“He sent a coded message to a known intermediary.”
“What message?”
Campbell looked at me.
I nodded.
She read it aloud.
“Ceremony went bad. C remembers more than expected. Hayes talked. Need cleanup.”
Dad’s face drained.
“Cleanup?”
“We don’t know what he intended.”
“I know what it sounds like.”
“So do we.”
I watched my father absorb the possibility that Eric had crossed a line far beyond greed.
He had spent years defending Eric.
Eric was struggling.
Eric needed another chance.
Eric made mistakes.
But asking someone to “clean up” a witness was not a mistake.
Campbell continued.
“The recipient attempted to leave the country two hours later.”
“Did you catch him?”
“Yes.”
“Who is he?”
“I can’t disclose that yet.”
Dad laughed without humor.
“I’m getting very tired of people saying that.”
“So am I,” I said.
Campbell ignored us.
“We also discovered surveillance photographs.”
My body went still.
“Of whom?”
“You.”
Dad looked at me.
Campbell swiped across her tablet.
“There are images outside your apartment, the base entrance, and…”
She paused.
“…your father’s house.”
Dad stepped forward.
“Our house?”
“Taken over six months.”
“Why?”
“We’re determining that.”
I knew exactly why.
Someone had been trying to map my routines.
The question was whether Eric knew.
Campbell said he remained in federal custody for questioning.
He had requested an attorney.
Diane, meanwhile, was furious that Dad had refused to post her bond immediately.
She had called him seventeen times.
He turned off his phone.
At 9:40 that night, General Hayes returned.
He carried no entourage.
No stars-and-stripes performance.
Just a tired man holding two coffees.
He handed one to Dad.
“I thought you might need this.”
Dad accepted it.
“Thank you.”
Hayes sat.
For several minutes nobody spoke.
Then Dad said, “Did she really carry you?”
Hayes looked at me.
“Yes.”
“How far?”
“Far enough.”
“General.”
Hayes sighed.
“Approximately one-point-seven miles.”
Dad stared at me.
“She weighed maybe one hundred twenty pounds.”
“One hundred thirty-five,” I muttered.
Hayes continued.
“I weighed more than two hundred with equipment.”
Dad looked horrified.
“How?”
Hayes smiled faintly.
“She complained the entire time.”
“I was motivating you.”
“You called me a heavy bureaucrat.”
“You were unconscious.”
“I woke up for that part.”
Dad laughed.
It surprised all three of us.
Then his laughter turned into something else.
He covered his mouth.
His shoulders shook.
I had seen my father cry exactly twice.
At Mom’s funeral.
And when our old golden retriever died.
I reached for him with my good hand.
“Dad.”
He stood and came to the bed.
“I’m sorry.”
I didn’t tell him everything was fine.
Because it wasn’t.
But I let him hold me.
The next morning, the investigation expanded.
Federal agents searched Dad and Diane’s house.
They found something hidden inside Eric’s childhood bedroom.
A second laptop.
Encrypted drives.
Cash.
Three foreign SIM cards.
Dad sat in the hospital cafeteria staring at photographs Campbell showed us.
“I never knew.”
I believed him.
That was almost worse.
Eric had used the house because he knew nobody would question him.
Diane certainly wouldn’t.
Her son could do no wrong.
The investigators also found copies of documents Dad had once legally possessed for his consulting work.
Most were outdated.
Some weren’t.
Eric had apparently learned that old information could still reveal patterns.
Names.
Relationships.
Travel habits.
Security procedures.
None of those documents alone could bring down a helicopter.
But intelligence rarely works through one dramatic secret.
Sometimes a dozen harmless pieces create a dangerous picture.
By noon, my release paperwork was complete.
Campbell refused to let me return to my apartment.
“Where am I supposed to go?”
“A secure location.”
Dad immediately said, “Come home.”
I stared at him.
“To your house?”
“Yes.”
“Where investigators just found an espionage starter kit under Eric’s bed?”
He winced.
“Fair point.”
Campbell arranged a temporary residence on base.
Dad insisted on coming.
We spent the afternoon talking.
Really talking.
For perhaps the first time since Mom died.
He told me he had known Diane resented my military career.
He admitted he had minimized it because conflict exhausted him.
“That’s a terrible excuse,” he said.
“Yes.”
“I know.”
He told me about his marriage.
The separate finances.
Diane’s constant threats to leave whenever he challenged Eric.
The years of manipulation he had mistaken for compromise.
I told him things too.
About the birthday Diane forgot.
The high school graduation dinner she changed because Eric wanted to see a movie.
The scholarship letter she hid for three days because she wanted Eric’s college acceptance to “have its moment.”
Dad looked sick.
“I never knew that.”
“That’s because she told me not to be dramatic.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I did.”
He stared.
“When?”
“Over and over.”
Dad closed his eyes.
And he remembered.
I could see it.
All the conversations he had brushed aside.
All the moments he had called misunderstandings.
“I failed you.”
“You did.”
His eyes opened.
I had never said it that directly.
He nodded slowly.
“I did.”
That evening, Campbell arrived with more news.
“The intermediary Eric contacted is cooperating.”
I stood.
“What does he want?”
“A deal.”
“For what?”
She hesitated.
“He claims Eric wasn’t simply selling information.”
Dad’s face tightened.
Campbell continued.
“He says Eric has been providing personal information about you specifically for almost two years.”
I felt cold.
“Why?”
“Because somebody believed you recovered something from the crash site.”
I looked at Hayes.
He understood immediately.
“The flight case.”
I hadn’t thought about it in months.
After the crash, I had retrieved a burned operations case from inside the wreckage.
Most of its contents were destroyed.
One encrypted storage device survived.
I handed it to investigators after rescue.
“What was on it?” Dad asked.
Hayes answered.
“Evidence.”
“Of what?”
“A procurement corruption network.”
Campbell nodded.
“The network included American contractors routing money through foreign subcontractors. The storage device helped identify several participants.”
Dad looked toward me.
“So they thought Carrie kept a copy?”
“Yes.”
“I didn’t,” I said.
Campbell’s expression troubled me.
“We know.”
“Then why keep watching me?”
“Because Eric told them you did.”
I stared at her.
“What?”
“He lied.”
“Why?”
“To keep getting paid.”
That sounded exactly like Eric.
Selling imaginary access.
Inventing secrets he could monetize.
Dad whispered, “He put a target on his sister for money.”
Campbell didn’t answer.
My phone rang.
Unknown number.
Campbell motioned for me not to touch it.
She activated recording equipment and nodded.
I answered.
“Hello?”
Silence.
Then Eric’s voice.
“Carrie.”
Dad stood.
Campbell signaled for silence.
“Where are you?” I asked.
Eric laughed.
“You always were the smart one.”
My pulse accelerated.
“You’re supposed to be in custody.”
“I left.”
Campbell’s face changed.
She grabbed her phone.
Eric continued.
“You should have kept your mouth shut.”
“You contacted people about me.”
“You ruined Mom’s life.”
“She hit me with a chair.”
“She was defending the family.”
I almost laughed.
“From my forearm?”
“You think this is funny?”
“No.”
His voice dropped.
“You’ve always thought you were better than us.”
There it was again.
The family anthem.
I said, “Where are you, Eric?”
“Closer than you think.”
The line disconnected.
Campbell shouted orders.
Security moved.
Hayes pulled Dad away from the window.
I looked outside.
Across the parking lot, beyond the security fence, a dark SUV accelerated away.
Campbell’s phone buzzed.
She looked at the screen.
Her expression hardened.
“What?”
She turned toward me.
“Eric escaped transport twenty-three minutes ago.”
Dad went white.
May you like
Then an alarm sounded across the building.
And the secure location where they had brought me was no longer secure.
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