Chapter 7 - THE NIGHT JENNA FORGOT
Jenna did not speak until we were back in the car.
“Two years ago,” she finally said, “Ryan and I had one final argument.”
“When?”
“Three days before I interviewed with you.”
I waited.
“He came to my apartment drunk. He kept asking whether anyone had contacted me.”
“About what?”
“I didn’t know.”
She stared through the windshield.
“He said his father had gotten him involved in something dangerous. I thought he was making excuses.”
“What else?”
“He gave me a flash drive.”
I turned toward her.
“You never mentioned a flash drive.”
“Because I forgot about it.”
“How do you forget something like that?”
Her eyes narrowed.
“I threw it into a box after we broke up. I haven’t opened that box since.”
We went to her apartment with six armed men.
The surveillance apartment across the street was empty.
Too empty.
Inside Jenna’s bedroom closet, she pulled down an old cardboard box.
College photographs.
Birthday cards.
A broken watch.
Then she found it.
A black flash drive.
Ryan had written one word across it.
INSURANCE.
My security team scanned it offline.
Encrypted folders appeared.
Payments.
Emails.
Audio recordings.
One folder was labeled BLACKWOOD.
Inside was a video.
Daniel.
Alive.
Recorded three weeks before his crash.
He was sitting in his car.
“If you’re seeing this, I was right.”
He looked exhausted.
“Ryan Mercer contacted me. He says his father and someone inside my family are moving weapons through Blackwood shipping routes without Evan knowing.”
Jenna covered her mouth.
Daniel continued.
“I don’t trust Ryan, but I believe the evidence.”
Then he said something that made Jenna freeze.
“Ryan gave a copy to his fiancée.”
She whispered, “Me.”
Daniel nodded on screen as if answering her.
“Jenna Hart doesn’t know what she has. Keep it that way until she’s safe.”
The video ended.
I looked at her.
Ryan had not watched Jenna because she worked for me.
He had watched her because he believed she possessed evidence capable of destroying whoever had tried to kill Daniel.
Another encrypted file unlocked automatically.
A photograph appeared.
My father.
Victor.
Ryan’s father.
And a fourth man.
Jenna leaned closer.
She recognized him first.
“That’s my dad.”
May you like
Her father, Thomas Hart, had spent thirty years telling his family he was an accountant.
The photograph showed him standing at the center of the conspiracy that nearly killed my brother.
