Chapter 6 - What My Daughter Knew
Emily stepped away from Rebecca.
“Dad.”
Daniel stared at her.
“You knew?”
Emily began crying.
“Not everything.”
Rebecca's heart sank.
“What did you know?”
Emily looked toward the floor.
“Two months ago I found Dad's old drive.”
Daniel closed his eyes.
“Where?”
“In the attic.”
“You opened it?”
“It wasn't encrypted when I found it.”
Daniel looked confused.
“It was.”
Lauren spoke quietly.
“Not after I accessed it.”
Everyone turned.
Lauren raised her hands.
“I was trying to find evidence against Cassandra.”
Rebecca's patience snapped.
“You keep deciding that secrets are safer than telling the truth.”
Lauren flinched.
Rebecca turned back to Emily.
“What did you see?”
“Videos. Documents. Your name.”
“And?”
Emily hesitated.
“I saw the threat against me.”
Daniel looked crushed.
“Emily.”
“You let me grow up thinking Mom chose the military over us.”
Rebecca stopped breathing.
Emily's tears fell.
“All those Christmases. Birthdays. Every time she couldn't come home, I thought she didn't want us enough.”
“That's not what happened,” Daniel said.
“You never told me!”
“I was protecting you.”
“From what? I'm twenty-six!”
“From people who threatened you when you were fifteen!”
Emily looked at Rebecca.
“And you didn't know any of it.”
“No.”
“That was when I started feeling guilty.”
Rebecca frowned.
“About what?”
“This Christmas.”
Emily wiped her face.
“Lauren kept saying she felt like an outsider. Dad wanted everyone together. I thought if you came, everything would be uncomfortable.”
Rebecca listened silently.
“So I called you.”
Emily's voice cracked.
“The second you said you understood, I knew I'd hurt you.”
Rebecca's anger dissolved.
“I wasn't trying to replace you.”
“I know.”
“I just wanted one Christmas where nobody felt divided.”
Rebecca stepped toward her.
“Families don't become whole by removing someone from the table.”
Emily nodded, crying.
“I know that now.”
Rebecca hugged her.
Daniel looked away.
Pike sat silently nearby, watching the family he had nearly destroyed.
Cole received a radio update.
“The drive access came through a remote connection. Nobody entered Daniel's house.”
Rebecca looked at Cassandra.
She was handcuffed.
Cassandra smiled.
“You destroyed hardware. Not Nightglass.”
“Who accessed the copy?”
Cassandra said nothing.
Rebecca crouched in front of her.
“Your father is finished protecting you.”
Cassandra glanced toward Pike.
Pike looked at his daughter.
“Tell her.”
“You betrayed me.”
“No,” Pike said. “I stopped betraying everyone else.”
Cassandra laughed bitterly.
“You think confession makes you righteous?”
“No.”
Pike's eyes filled.
“It makes me late.”
Rebecca stood.
Hale contacted them.
“We traced the remote access.”
“Where?”
“Pentagon network.”
Rebecca went still.
Cassandra wasn't the last person involved.
“Who?”
“We're working on it.”
“No. Give me the terminal.”
Hale hesitated.
Then:
“Office of Strategic Systems.”
Rebecca knew the office.
Its director was Lieutenant General Marcus Trent.
Her current commanding officer.
The man who had approved her Christmas shift.
The man who had known exactly where she would be at midnight.
Rebecca remembered calling Major Collins.
Give the shift to me.
Had that been coincidence?
Or had someone expected Rebecca to volunteer after Emily excluded her?
The realization was worse.
Cassandra couldn't have known Emily would make that call unless someone had been watching the family closely.
Rebecca looked at Emily.
“Who suggested you call me instead of telling me in person?”
Emily thought.
“Dad mentioned talking to you.”
Daniel shook his head.
“I said we should invite her.”
Emily frowned.
“Then... Lauren?”
Lauren shook her head.
“I wanted Rebecca there.”
Emily went pale.
“There was an email.”
“What email?”
“It looked like it came from Dad.”
Daniel stared.
“I didn't send anything.”
Emily pulled up the message.
Rebecca read it.
Maybe call your mother privately. Explain that Lauren needs this Christmas to feel accepted. She'll understand.
Rebecca checked the routing data.
Spoofed.
Someone had engineered the family rejection.
Not merely exploited it.
Engineered it.
Her exclusion had been part of Nightglass.
Make Rebecca emotionally vulnerable.
Put her on base.
Trigger Daniel's name at 12:03.
Force the biometric stress response.
Rebecca felt something inside her become perfectly still.
“Trent.”
Hale heard.
“We don't have proof.”
“We will.”
By dawn, federal investigators had isolated Trent's office.
Rebecca returned to the command center.
The Christmas tree still glowed.
Her untouched coffee sat beside her keyboard.
It felt as though she'd left weeks ago.
Briggs approached.
“You okay, ma'am?”
“No.”
He nodded.
“Fair answer.”
Rebecca almost smiled.
Then her monitor activated.
A video call.
GENERAL MARCUS TRENT.
Rebecca answered.
“Sir.”
“Colonel.”
“Where are you?”
“You know where.”
“Your office is empty.”
Trent smiled.
“Then apparently you don't.”
Rebecca signaled Briggs to trace the connection.
Trent continued.
“Cassandra was brilliant, but impatient.”
“You used her.”
“I financed her.”
“Why?”
“Because Nightglass works.”
“You manipulated my daughter.”
“A necessary pressure point.”
Rebecca's jaw tightened.
“You're admitting this on a recorded military channel.”
“No, Rebecca.”
Trent leaned closer.
“I'm giving you a choice.”
A file appeared.
Rebecca opened it.
It contained evidence.
Not against her.
Against Pike, Cassandra, Hale, and several contractors.
Enough to expose everything.
“You want the truth?” Trent asked. “There it is.”
“What do you want?”
“Walk away.”
Rebecca stared.
“You think I'm going to let you disappear?”
“I think you'll protect your daughter.”
A second file appeared.
Emily's financial records.
Her workplace.
Her apartment.
Photographs.
Rebecca felt cold rage.
Trent smiled.
“Everyone has a pressure point.”
Rebecca leaned toward the camera.
“You learned nothing tonight.”
“What?”
“You think threatening my daughter gives you power over me.”
“It does.”
“No.”
Rebecca's voice became quiet.
“It gives me a reason never to stop.”
Trent's smile faded.
Briggs signaled.
Trace established.
Rebecca said, “Got you.”
Trent disconnected.
Briggs displayed the location.
An abandoned communications facility near Fort Belvoir.
Cole mobilized.
Rebecca grabbed her coat.
Emily stopped her.
“Mom.”
Rebecca turned.
“Come home after this.”
The simple request nearly broke her.
Rebecca nodded.
“I will.”
“For Christmas?”
Rebecca looked at the clock.
It was still Christmas morning.
“Yes.”
Emily hugged her.
Rebecca whispered, “Save me a seat.”
She left with Cole.
Forty minutes later, federal vehicles surrounded the communications facility.
The entrance appeared deserted.
Rebecca and Cole moved inside.
A monitor glowed at the end of the corridor.
Trent's recorded voice played:
“Rebecca, if you're hearing this, you finally chose family over orders.”
Rebecca approached.
Beside the monitor sat the encrypted drive.
Daniel's copy.
Cole examined it.
“Could be trapped.”
Rebecca noticed something underneath.
A photograph.
Emily at age fifteen.
On the back:
THE FIRST THREAT WAS NEVER FROM PIKE.
Rebecca's blood ran cold.
She turned toward Warren Pike.
He had followed the tactical team inside.
Pike stared at the photograph.
“What does that mean?”
Rebecca showed him.
Pike's face drained of color.
“No.”
“What?”
He looked toward the dark corridor.
“Eleven years ago, Cassandra told me she threatened Emily.”
Rebecca stared.
“But?”
Pike whispered:
“She lied.”
A door at the end of the corridor clicked open.
Someone stepped into the light.
May you like
Rebecca recognized the face.
And suddenly she understood who had been watching her family for eleven years.
