Major Rebecca Sloan had once served as an Army JAG officer before becoming an assistant U.S. attorney. We’d met during an investigation overseas.
She answered on the third ring.
“This better be important.”
“Someone created seven companies using my identity.”
She became awake instantly.
“Start over.”
I told her everything.
She didn’t interrupt.
When I finished, she said, “Do not confront anyone.”
“I already accused my mother.”
“Wonderful.”
“I had a difficult evening.”
“So I gather. What documents do you have?”
“Formation papers, credit applications, contracts.”
“Government contracts?”
“At least two appear to be.”
Her tone changed.
“Shayla, listen carefully. If anyone used your veteran status to obtain government contracts, this could be much bigger than identity theft.”
“How much bigger?”
“Federal fraud.”
I looked through the glass at Dad.
Rebecca continued.
“Preserve everything. Do not access accounts you aren’t legally authorized to access. Don’t take documents from your parents’ home unless they belong to you or law enforcement has authority.”
“I think there’s something in Dad’s office.”
“Then let the police handle it.”
“You’ve gotten boring.”
“I became a prosecutor.”
“Same thing.”
“Shayla.”
“I heard you.”
She paused.
“Are you safe?”
I looked at my bandaged leg.
“Define safe.”
“Can you stay somewhere your family can’t get to you?”
“Yes.”
“Do it.”
At 1:38 a.m., I left the hospital.
In the parking garage, I noticed a black SUV parked two rows away.
Its headlights came on.
I stopped.
The SUV didn’t move.
I walked toward my rental car.
The SUV rolled forward.
Probably coincidence.
Then my phone buzzed.
Unknown number.
I opened the message.
STOP DIGGING INTO BLUE CREST.
I froze.
A second message arrived.
YOUR MOTHER IS THE LEAST OF YOUR PROBLEMS.
The SUV accelerated toward the exit.
I photographed the plate.
By the time I reached my car, my phone rang.
Chloe.
I answered.
“Where are you?”
“Why?”
“You need to come back to the house.”
“No.”
“Shayla, something happened.”
I heard genuine panic.
“What?”
“Someone broke into Dad’s office.”
My grip tightened on the phone.
“What did they take?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did you call the police?”
Another pause.
Then Chloe whispered something that changed everything.
“They didn’t break in from outside.”
“What?”
“The security camera shows someone already inside the house.”
“Who?”
“I can’t tell.”
“Send me the footage.”
“I can’t.”
“Why?”
May you like
Her breathing became shaky.
CHAPER 3
By 8:15, he was sitting across from me in a hospital cafeteria with two coffees neither of us intended to drink.
Pike was in his early forties, clean-shaven, patient, and possessed the unpleasant habit of letting silence do his interrogation for him.
I liked him immediately.
“You believe the break-in is connected to the companies?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because someone warned me to stop investigating Blue Crest less than an hour before Chloe called.”
I slid screenshots across the table.
Pike studied them.
“Unknown number?”
“Disposable, probably.”
“And the SUV?”
I gave him the photograph.
“We’ll run it.”
“Mom deleted the security footage.”
“Your sister says that?”
“Yes.”
“Why would your mother delete evidence of a burglary?”
“That’s one of approximately four hundred questions I’d like answered.”
He almost smiled.
“Your mother says nothing was stolen.”
“Then why call it a burglary?”
“She doesn’t.”
Of course she didn’t.
“She told officers your father probably left the office door unlocked and a guest entered by mistake.”
“Guests casually rummage through locked filing cabinets?”
“One cabinet appears damaged.”
“Convenient.”
Pike leaned back.
“You served twelve years?”
“Yes.”
“Military intelligence?”
“Logistics and procurement. Last four years attached to a joint acquisition unit.”
That caught his attention.
“So you understand contracting.”
“Well enough to know what forged veteran-owned certifications can accomplish.”
Pike set down his pen.
“What exactly do you think happened?”
“I think somebody used my identity and service record to qualify companies for contracts they couldn’t otherwise obtain.”
“Your mother?”
“Maybe.”
“Your sister?”
“Probably.”
“Your father?”
“I don’t know.”
I hated saying that.
Pike saw it.
“Families are usually the hardest suspects.”
“I didn’t call them suspects.”
“You didn’t have to.”
Dad remained hospitalized.
Mom had gone home.
Chloe had disappeared from everyone except Mom.
Rebecca called while I was with Pike and asked me to come to her office.
When I arrived, she had transformed an entire conference-room wall into a map of my stolen life.
Seven companies.
Four banks.
Eleven contracts.
Three states.
Two properties.
And one signature that appeared on all of them.
Mine.
Rebecca stood with a yellow legal pad.
“I pulled public procurement records.”
“How bad?”
“Do you want diplomatic or accurate?”
“Accurate.”
“Bad.”
She pointed to Blue Crest.
“Blue Crest received approximately $3.8 million in subcontracting work over eighteen months.”
I stared.
“Three point eight?”
“Chesapeake Veteran Solutions received another 1.4.”
My stomach turned.
“Hawthorne?”
“Smaller. Roughly six hundred thousand.”
“Where did the money go?”
“That requires subpoenas.”
“Total?”
“Based only on public data? At least $6.2 million connected to companies representing themselves as veteran-controlled businesses.”
I laughed once because the alternative was putting my fist through the wall.
“I earn a captain’s retirement and contract-consulting income, and apparently millionaire me forgot six million dollars.”
Rebecca didn’t smile.
“There’s more.”
There was always more.
“Show me.”
She opened a filing.
A loan guarantee.
$850,000.
My name.
My signature.
And a notarization.
I stared at the notary.
“Angela Reed.”
“Relative?”
“My aunt.”
Mom’s younger sister.
Rebecca nodded.
“She notarized your signature.”
“I haven’t seen Angela in almost four years.”
“Then either someone forged her notary information…”
“Or she’s involved.”
“Yes.”
I sat down.
My mother.
My sister.
Possibly my aunt.
Maybe Dad.
“What were these companies actually doing?”
“Some legitimate subcontracting. Some invoice patterns look suspicious.”
“Suspicious how?”
“High consulting fees. Repeated vendors. Circular payments.”
“Money laundering?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You thought it.”
“I’m a prosecutor. I think lots of unpleasant things.”
I looked again at the wall.
“Who’s the veteran partner Dad thought Chloe had?”
Rebecca tapped Blue Crest’s paperwork.
“According to the filings?”
“Yes.”
“You.”
I stared.
She continued.
“You supposedly own fifty-one percent.”
“That’s the threshold.”
“Exactly.”
“And Chloe?”
“Forty-nine.”
There it was.
My sister had built herself a company by making me the majority owner on paper.
I had spent months learning to walk while Chloe apparently learned to counterfeit my signature.
Rebecca slid another paper across the table.
“Recognize this man?”
The name read MARTIN VALE.
I did.
“Mom’s financial adviser.”
“More than that. Vale appears as registered agent or financial consultant for five of the seven companies.”
That connected the black SUV to something I remembered from childhood.
Martin Vale drove black luxury SUVs.
Always.
He had managed my parents’ investments for fifteen years.
He had also attended the party.
Standing near the staircase.
Watching when I fell.
“Run the plate I photographed.”
“Already sent it to Pike.”
My phone rang before Rebecca finished speaking.
Dad.
His voice sounded weak.
“Can you come upstairs?”
“You’re still in the hospital.”
“I know.”
“I’m ten minutes away.”
“No.”
His urgency stopped me.
“Where are you?”
“Home.”
I stood.
“You left against medical advice?”
“Your mother picked me up.”
“Dad—”
“I need you here.”
“What happened?”
He lowered his voice.
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