Chapter 12 - The Woman Who Warned Me
Lena answered on the seventh call.
Her voice was quiet and ragged.
“Commander, please don't hang up.”
“Where are you?”
“Somewhere safe for the moment.”
“You used my badge.”
“No.”
“Someone used credentials connected to you.”
“I know.”
“You met Patrick Sloane.”
A long silence followed.
“I've been trying to find out who compromised our case.”
“Then why didn't you report it?”
“Because the first person I reported to called Thomas Vale.”
I kept breathing evenly.
Fear had a way of making me hear what I expected instead of what a witness actually said.
I asked Lena for her location and urged her to make contact with an independent investigator.
She agreed to meet a federal liaison at a public office.
Before ending the call, she confessed that she had accessed my father's storage locker.
She claimed an anonymous threat had directed her there.
The locker was empty when she arrived.
“Then why didn't you tell me?”
“Because the threat included your children's school route.”
I closed my eyes.
Lena had withheld information out of fear, but fear had also made her vulnerable to manipulation.
I told her that protecting the children required involving people who could act.
She began crying, apologized once, and gave the liaison the name of a courier.
That courier was later located and interviewed.
He identified Thomas Vale's private security director as the person who paid him.
The breakthrough was real, but it did not make Lena innocent of every decision she had taken.
Internal affairs would still examine her conduct.
I went into the children's bedroom and checked the locks on their windows.
Noah was awake, reading a book about Saturn.
“Are you leaving again?” he asked.
“Not tonight.”
He looked relieved.
“Did that man say we're his kids?”
“He's starting to understand what he gave up.”
Noah stared at the planets in his book.
“I don't want him to buy us stuff.”
“What do you want?”
“I want him to tell the truth.”
His answer followed me into my office.
On my desk waited a secure notice about a new court filing.
Daniel had petitioned for an immediate determination of paternity and requested temporary visitation.
The filing acknowledged that the children were likely his.
It also alleged that I had intentionally concealed them.
Attached to it was a false sworn statement bearing Lena's name.
According to the statement, I had ordered staff to destroy communications from Daniel.
I knew the document was forged because Lena had spent that entire week in a training program with authenticated attendance records.
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Whoever filed it had just turned a family betrayal into an attack on my children through the courts.
