Chapter 1 - THE NIGHT THEY LOCKED HER OUT
My mother pointed at my eight-month-pregnant stomach and told me to sleep in the garage before the flowers from my husband’s funeral had begun to wilt.
“Chloe and Julian are moving in tonight,” Diane said. “They need your room for his office.”
I stood in the kitchen of the waterfront villa David and I had called home, still wearing the black dress from the burial service. My lower back throbbed. The baby had been pressing beneath my ribs for most of the afternoon.
“The guest wing has three bedrooms.”
“Julian can’t work around crying,” my father said from the breakfast table. Robert loosened his tie and reached for another drink. “Frankly, neither can we. Your grief has ruined the atmosphere in this house.”
Chloe leaned against the marble island, avoiding my eyes. Her husband stood behind her with two suitcases and a laptop case.
Julian glanced toward the upstairs hall.
“Is David’s black computer still in the study?”
The question came too quickly.
I looked at him. “Why?”
“He mentioned some aviation software before he died. I thought there might be files his unit needs.”
David had never discussed classified work with Julian. He barely trusted him with a dinner reservation.
Diane stepped between us.
“This is exactly what I mean. Everyone tries to help, and you interrogate them.”
She handed me an old camping cot.
The garage was unheated. A January cold snap had pushed temperatures near freezing along the South Carolina coast, and wind from Charleston Harbor pressed through the gaps beneath the doors.
“I’m not sleeping out there.”
Robert took my overnight bag from the chair and carried it through the side entrance.
“You’re living in our house without contributing,” he said. “You’ll sleep wherever we tell you.”
The villa was not theirs.
David and I had purchased it through our family trust three years earlier. My parents moved in temporarily after his death because they said I should not be alone. I had not yet found the strength to ask when temporary would end.
When I reached for my phone, Diane took it from the counter.
“You need one night without creating another emergency.”
Robert closed the interior garage door and turned the lock.
I heard Chloe say my name from the other side.
Then Julian said, “Leave her. We only need until morning.”
That sentence cleared the last of my confusion.
They did not need a bedroom.
They needed access to David’s study while I could not see them.
I opened the side service door, stepped into the cold and retrieved the encrypted phone hidden inside David’s old field jacket. Only three people knew the number.
A security alert filled the screen.
UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS ATTEMPT: VANCE SECURE ARCHIVE.
Seconds later, another message appeared.
ACQUISITION APPROVED. FEDERAL TRANSFER TEAM ARRIVING 0800.
I called my obstetrician first.
May you like
Then I called David’s former team leader.
“Eli,” I said, walking toward the road, “someone is inside the archive.”
