Chapter 5 - Someone Had Been Watching the Diner
Caleb did not know the exact address.
The cyber team investigating the access had only a regional network range because the login had been routed through multiple services.
But somebody near Millinocket had accessed Ranger’s old command files.
Then Ranger appeared at my diner.
Coincidence was no longer credible.
I asked Caleb whether Vale knew about the unauthorized access.
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Before he sent me here.”
That was the hidden truth beginning to surface.
Vale had not sent Ranger to Maine because he suspected I was compromised.
He sent Ranger because he wanted to test whether I was still here.
Without contacting me.
Without warning me.
Using a dog he knew I might instinctively react to.
I stood.
“He used Ranger to confirm my identity.”
“That’s what I think.”
“Why?”
Caleb shook his head.
“I don’t know.”
I did.
Or at least I knew one possibility.
Vale no longer trusted the communication channels he had used to protect me.
If somebody was monitoring him, directly contacting Evelyn Hart would expose me.
Sending Ranger created plausible deniability.
Except there was a problem.
Whoever accessed Ranger’s commands could have predicted the same test.
Meaning I might have been exposed to two groups simultaneously.
I finished my shift early.
Donna complained.
I told her I had a migraine.
Then Caleb drove separately while I took a winding route home.
No obvious tail.
Inside my apartment, something was wrong.
Nothing had been stolen.
Nothing visibly moved.
Then I saw my kitchen chair.
It was facing the window.
I never left it that way.
Caleb noticed a small mark near the lock.
“Somebody bypassed this.”
I went straight to the lockbox.
Still there.
Still locked.
Inside, the photograph remained.
The challenge coin remained.
But underneath them was something new.
A dog collar tag.
Military style.
Scratched.
Old.
I recognized the number stamped into the metal.
Ranger’s original service identification.
I had removed that tag myself the night before our final mission because it had become damaged.
I gave it to Mason.
He said he would replace it.
Then Mason died.
I held the tag in my palm.
Caleb watched my face.
“What?”
“This belonged to someone who shouldn’t be able to return it.”
“Mason Keller?”
I nodded.
For the first time, Caleb looked genuinely unsettled.
If Mason had survived, three years of assumptions were wrong.
If he hadn’t, someone was using his belongings to pull me out of hiding.
Either way, somebody had been close enough to enter my apartment.
May you like
The past wasn’t surfacing.
It was standing in my kitchen.
