Chapter 8 - The Expert Derek Bought
Dr. Evan Mercer was not a treating therapist.
He was a consultant who often testified in high-conflict custody disputes.
Claire obtained the billing records through Derek’s own shared financial account.
He had paid Mercer eighteen thousand dollars.
The payments began six months earlier.
Rebecca had been overseas for only eight weeks.
“He started planning before your assignment,” Claire said.
The invoices listed services such as narrative development, risk analysis, and parental instability assessment.
Rebecca read the words twice.
“Narrative development?”
“He was constructing a story.”
Claire found another payment to Mason’s company.
The memo read SECURITY CONSULTATION.
But Mason did not own a security company.
He operated a small private gym.
Rebecca searched the company registration.
Mason had created a new business three months earlier called Sentinel Family Protection.
Its address matched Derek’s office.
The hidden cameras had been purchased through it.
The equipment records showed five devices.
Only three had been found.
“Where are the other two?” Rebecca asked.
Claire looked at Lily’s drawing.
“One may be upstairs.”
The investigator returned to the house with Rebecca.
They found a camera inside a smoke detector in the upstairs hallway.
The fifth device remained missing.
Then Rebecca remembered her car.
Derek often volunteered to service it before deployments.
They inspected the vehicle.
A tracker was attached beneath the rear bumper.
Inside the dashboard was a tiny audio recorder.
Rebecca stared at it.
Derek had followed her movements and captured private conversations.
Possibly conversations with military colleagues.
Possibly classified discussions, though Rebecca was careful never to discuss sensitive material outside secure spaces.
Still, the implication was serious.
Derek had not only invaded her privacy.
He had tracked a serving officer without consent.
The investigator bagged the device.
Then a new recording appeared on Rebecca’s phone.
It had been sent automatically from Lily’s memory card.
Mason’s voice filled the room.
May you like
“Once she touches me, we call it assault.”
👉 Derek’s final plan was not merely to portray Rebecca as unstable—he intended to provoke her into violence on camera.
