Chapter 2 - The Phone in the Evidence BagI did not sleep that night.
Not because of the pain.
Not because of the bruises.
Because of the photograph.
My apartment.
Taken from outside.
Two weeks before Daniel attacked me.
The picture showed my building from across the street.
The date stamp was clear.
Someone had been watching.
And somehow, Daniel had obtained the image.
By sunrise, my apartment had become a crime scene.
Security investigators photographed everything.
The broken door.
The damaged table.
The blood on the floor.
The fingerprints Daniel had left everywhere.
They took my phone for forensic analysis.
They checked the windows.
The vents.
Even the smoke detector.
Commander Grant returned to the medical center around 7:30.
“You need to understand something,” he said.
I sat on the edge of the hospital bed.
“What?”
“This is no longer being treated as a domestic assault.”
I looked at him.
“Because of the other women?”
“Because of the phone.”
He placed several photographs in front of me.
The phone contained seventeen photographs of military personnel.
Six were women.
Eleven were men.
Some photographs showed them entering buildings.
Some showed them leaving work.
One had been taken through a windshield.
Another appeared to be from inside a hallway.
“Who took them?” I asked.
“We don't know.”
“Daniel?”
“He claims the phone isn't his.”
I almost laughed.
“He had it in his car.”
“Exactly.”
Commander Grant leaned forward.
“Daniel's fingerprints are on the case. But not on the phone itself.”
That made my skin crawl.
“Someone else handled it.”
He nodded.
“There is more.”
He turned the next page.
A spreadsheet.
Names.
Dates.
Locations.
And something called ACCESS LEVEL.
I recognized the names of two officers.
One had worked in base logistics.
The other worked at the medical center.
“What's this?”
“We don't know.”
“Then why are you showing me?”
“Because one of the names belongs to Margaret's supervisor.”
I stared at him.
Daniel had not simply broken into my apartment.
His mother might have been part of something much larger.
That afternoon, investigators questioned Margaret.
She admitted helping Daniel enter the installation.
She claimed she thought he only wanted to talk to me.
She denied knowing about the photographs.
She denied knowing about the phone.
Then investigators showed her the spreadsheet.
Her reaction lasted less than a second.
But it was enough.
She recognized it.
Commander Grant noticed.
So did I.
Margaret looked terrified.
“What is that?” I asked her.
She refused to answer.
Then she said something that made no sense.
“You don't know what you've gotten yourself into.”
I felt cold.
“What does that mean?”
Margaret looked directly at me.
“You think Daniel was angry with you.”
Her voice dropped.
“He wasn't.”
“Then why did he come?”
She swallowed.
“He was afraid.”
“Of me?”
“No.”
She looked toward the interrogation-room camera.
“He was afraid of them.”
The interview ended immediately.
I was taken back to my apartment that evening.
Security had increased patrols.
Two officers were stationed nearby.
I should have felt safe.
Instead, I felt watched.
At 10:42 p.m., my phone rang.
Unknown number.
I stared at the screen.
I didn't answer.
It rang again.
Then a text appeared.
YOU SHOULD HAVE LET HIM FINISH.
My blood went cold.
I showed the message to security.
Within minutes, investigators arrived.
They traced the number.
Burner phone.
No useful location data.
Then another message arrived.
THE WOMEN ON THE PHONE ARE NOT THE TARGET.
My stomach tightened.
“What does that mean?”
No response.
Then:
YOU ARE.
The lights in my apartment flickered.
I froze.
The officer beside me touched his weapon.
“Stay here.”
He moved toward the hallway.
Three seconds later, the lights returned.
Nothing happened.
But when he opened my bedroom door, he stopped.
“There.”
I walked closer.
A small black device had been placed beneath my desk.
A camera.
Hidden.
My breath caught.
“How long has that been there?”
The technician examined it.
“Hard to say.”
He looked at me.
“But it's transmitting.”
“To where?”
“We're working on that.”
I sat down.
My hands wouldn't stop shaking.
The person watching me had been inside my apartment.
Not outside.
Inside.
Then the forensic team arrived.
They carefully removed the device.
One investigator checked the serial number.
His face changed.
“What?”
He didn't answer immediately.
Finally, he said:
“This camera was issued through the Navy.”
The room went silent.
“That's impossible.”
He shook his head.
“It gets worse.”
“How?”
“The inventory number belongs to a unit at the base medical center.”
Margaret's workplace.
That night, I finally understood why she had looked afraid during questioning.
She wasn't protecting Daniel.
She was protecting someone else.
And when investigators searched the medical center the next morning, they discovered something hidden behind a locked cabinet.
A second storage drive.
Encrypted.
Inside it was a folder named:
OLIVIA CARTER
The folder contained exactly one file.
A document created five months before my divorce.
May you like
The title was only four words.
SUBJECT READY FOR TRANSFER.
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