Chapter 3 - THE CLASSIFIED LINE ON MY FILE
Daniel had seen only the version of my résumé I used in civilian life.
Administrative consultant.
Security compliance.
Operations management.
Nothing dramatic.
Nothing that explained why I knew how to take a bat away from a man twice my size without giving him a second swing.
Agent Donnelly knew more.
“So,” she said, “your military file is still partially sealed.”
I looked at her.
“How did you get access?”
“I didn’t.”
“Then how do you know?”
“Someone above me told me not to underestimate you.”
That answer annoyed me more than it reassured me.
I had served eight years.
Most of it ordinary.
Some of it not.
My final assignment involved recovering personnel from hostile environments and teaching teams how to stay alive when plans collapsed.
I did not discuss it.
Not with coworkers.
Not with Daniel.
Especially not with Daniel.
Donnelly said, “Did he ever ask about your service?”
“Once.”
“What did you tell him?”
“That I handled logistics.”
She almost smiled.
“Technically true.”
“Exactly.”
Ship technicians reviewed the Deck Nine key-card history.
Daniel had entered the maintenance corridor twice that afternoon.
Once before we boarded.
Once after our luggage arrived.
He claimed he was looking for the gym.
Nobody believed him.
Then security found something inside the corridor.
A small duffel bag.
Gloves.
A hooded jacket.
A prepaid phone.
And a printed deck plan with one area circled.
The lifeboat service bay.
I stared at it.
Donnelly said, “Rebecca’s last phone signal came from the same section of her ship.”
Daniel had planned something.
The bat might not have been the entire plan.
It might have been the beginning.
A way to injure me.
Control me.
Move me.
Then make the disappearance look like an accident.
Donnelly’s phone rang.
She listened.
Her face changed.
“What?”
She handed me a tablet.
A bank record.
Daniel had opened an offshore account under a company name two months earlier.
Mercer Maritime Consulting.
Three deposits.
Each from insurance-related payments.
The first belonged to Rebecca.
The second came from another woman.
Jennifer Sloan.
I looked up.
“Who is that?”
Donnelly answered quietly.
“Another woman Daniel dated.”
“Did she disappear?”
“No.”
“Then what happened?”
“She survived a hiking accident in Colorado.”
A long pause.
“She always believed someone pushed her.”
May you like
Daniel had not started on cruise ships.
He had been practicing.
