Chapter 12 - BRAD'S REAL PLAN
Rachel finally understood something I had begun suspecting.
Brad wasn't building a future with her.
He was building a way to control her.
He recorded conversations.
Saved passwords.
Moved money into his company.
Encouraged her to sign documents.
He had even convinced her to transfer the fundraiser funds through accounts he controlled.
"If the police came."
Rachel whispered.
"He could make it look like all of it was me."
Katherine didn't blink.
"A great deal of it was you."
Rachel nodded.
"I know."
For once, she didn't argue.
Brad had promised they would begin again in Mexico.
He told Rachel they would take Lily somewhere she could forget everything.
Forget the house.
Forget the military.
Forget me.
But after I returned, Brad vanished.
He took the emergency cash from my safe.
He took documents.
He left Rachel behind.
Then Rachel revealed one more detail.
"He has another storage unit."
"Where?"
"I don't know."
"He never told me."
Katherine asked what was inside.
Rachel stared at the table.
"Cash."
"Documents."
"Maybe passports."
"Whose passports?"
Rachel looked at me.
"I don't know."
Her attorney closed his eyes.
Every answer made things worse.
That evening, Jenna Collins called me again.
Brad's former wife.
She had remembered something.
During their marriage, Brad always rented storage units under business names.
She provided three old aliases.
One matched a name Katherine had seen on a transfer.
Police located a unit outside town.
Inside were boxes of financial records.
Fake identification.
Burner phones.
And photographs.
Dozens of photographs of my house.
Lily's school.
Rachel's office.
My base entrance.
Brad had studied us long before Rachel claimed their affair began.
The investigators found a notebook.
One page contained four names.
Rachel.
Lily.
Ethan.
Buster.
Beside Rachel's name was the word ACCESS.
Beside Lily's name was LEVERAGE.
Beside mine was OBSTACLE.
Beside Buster's name was one word.
PROBLEM.
I stared at the page.
Brad hadn't fallen in love with my wife.
He had selected my family.
The question was why.
Then an investigator pulled another folder from the storage box.
Inside was a copy of an old newspaper clipping.
My photograph was circled in red.
The article was eight years old.
It described a military investigation I had assisted with early in my career.
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One of the civilians convicted in that case had a familiar last name.
Collins.
