Chapter 4 - THE MOTHER THEY TURNED INTO A WEAPON
Rachel Voss arrived at the federal building the following afternoon.
She came with her attorney.
She wore an oversized gray sweater, faded jeans, and shoes that looked two sizes too big.
Nothing about her suggested a woman involved in an $8 million conspiracy.
She looked exhausted.
And frightened.
I wasn't supposed to meet her initially.
Daniel had arranged a formal interview, and my presence could complicate the investigation.
But Rachel had made an unusual request.
She wanted to apologize to me.
Her attorney believed a brief, supervised meeting might help her cooperate.
Maya reluctantly agreed.
When I entered the conference room, Rachel stood so quickly her chair struck the wall.
“Colonel Ellison.”
I stopped in the doorway.
She had my old identification photograph in her case file.
She'd studied my face.
Worn clothing designed to resemble mine.
Signed documents under my name.
Yet seeing the real me seemed to terrify her.
“You don't have to stand,” I said.
She slowly sat down.
Her hands wouldn't stop shaking.
“I know you probably hate me.”
I pulled out the chair opposite her.
“I don't know you well enough to hate you.”
Her eyes filled.
“I took your name.”
“Yes.”
“I signed those documents.”
“Yes.”
“I knew it was wrong.”
I said nothing.
She looked down.
“They showed me pictures of Ben outside his school.”
My chest tightened.
Rachel continued.
“They knew his teacher's name. They knew which days he stayed with my mother. They knew he needed an inhaler when his asthma got bad.”
She covered her face.
“I was scared they'd take him.”
I leaned forward.
“Is Ben safe now?”
Her eyes lifted.
“Yes. Federal agents helped arrange a protected place for him and my mother.”
For the first time that day, I felt something like relief.
“Good.”
Rachel stared at me.
“That's all you're going to say?”
“What would you like me to say?”
“That I'm a terrible person.”
I considered her carefully.
“You made choices that hurt people. You'll have to answer for them.”
She nodded, tears running down her cheeks.
“But being threatened through your child doesn't make you a monster,” I continued. “It makes you someone who was frightened. What you do now matters.”
She began crying quietly.
Not dramatic sobs.
Just the exhausted tears of someone who'd carried too much fear for too long.
After a moment, she wiped her face.
“I'll tell them everything.”
And she did.
Over the next several hours, Rachel described how she'd been recruited by a Riverstone executive after losing her job.
At first, she'd been offered temporary administrative work.
The pay was unusually good.
Her responsibilities sounded harmless.
Delivering documents.
Attending meetings.
Confirming identities for internal company records.
Then Mercer showed her a photograph.
Mine.
“He said you were helping the company with a confidential government project,” Rachel explained.
I almost laughed at the absurdity.
“I'd never met him.”
“I know that now.”
“What happened when you questioned him?”
“He said I was already involved.”
She looked at her attorney.
“He showed me documents with my signature on them. Then he showed me pictures of Ben.”
I felt my jaw tighten.
Mercer hadn't simply recruited an accomplice.
He'd built a trap around a desperate mother.
Rachel had impersonated me at eleven different meetings.
Sometimes she entered under my name.
Sometimes she signed attendance records.
Sometimes she simply sat silently while executives discussed money.
“Did you ever actually approve a military transfer?” I asked.
“No. I signed papers they gave me. I never saw the real payment systems.”
That mattered.
The physical impersonation was only part of the scheme.
Other people had manipulated the underlying approvals and documents.
I looked at Daniel.
He understood what I was thinking.
Someone with legitimate access had been helping them.
Rachel continued.
“The last time I went to Riverstone, Mr. Mercer was furious. He said the transfer had to happen before you returned.”
“Why?”
“He said everything would collapse if you started asking questions.”
I leaned forward.
“Did he know I was coming home?”
She nodded.
“He said your arrival was an unexpected problem.”
My mother's words echoed in my head.
You were never supposed to return.
I forced myself to remain calm.
“Rachel, did you ever hear the name Blue Lantern?”
Her face changed.
She looked immediately toward her attorney.
He nodded for her to continue.
“Yes.”
My heart began pounding.
“What was it?”
“I don't know everything. It was a project inside Riverstone. They didn't let ordinary employees discuss it.”
“Did you see any documents?”
She closed her eyes, trying to remember.
“One folder. It had blue tabs.”
Daniel leaned forward.
“What was written on it?”
Rachel swallowed.
“Operational risk adjustment.”
I felt a cold pressure behind my ribs.
“Anything else?”
“There were names.”
“Whose names?”
“Yours.”
My hands tightened beneath the table.
“And another woman.”
I barely breathed.
Rachel looked at me.
“Lena Ortiz.”
The room seemed to tilt.
For several seconds, I couldn't speak.
Lena's name wasn't merely in a military report.
It had appeared inside a private company's secret project.
A project linked to my father's money.
I heard Daniel asking Rachel additional questions, but his words sounded distant.
All I could see was Lena smiling beside her daughter's birthday cake.
Rachel continued describing the folder.
“There were two different columns. One was marked primary. The other said secondary.”
“Do you remember which name was where?” Daniel asked.
Rachel nodded slowly.
“Colonel Ellison was primary.”
I gripped the edge of the table.
“And Captain Ortiz?”
Rachel's eyes filled again.
She looked at me with a mixture of pity and horror.
Then she whispered:
“Her name was beside a note that said, 'Foreseeable loss.'”
I couldn't move.
For five months, I'd believed Lena died because she'd been in the wrong place at the wrong time.
May you like
Now I was beginning to understand something far worse.
Someone may have known she would die—and decided her life was an acceptable price.
