Chapter 3 - Unraveling the Web
The name Marcus Vance acted like a lightning bolt through the room. Christopher stood up so fast his chair clattered backward onto the floor. Marcus Vance was the disgraced former CID officer who had been cashiered out of the service under mysterious circumstances eight years ago—the very man Christopher had blamed for ruining his career advancement.
"Vance?" Christopher gasped, clutching the edge of the table. "You... you had a child with the man who betrayed my unit?"
"He didn't betray your unit, Christopher," I said, gesturing to the restaurant door as two men in tailored dark suits stepped inside. "He exposed the smuggling ring your darling Jacqueline was operating right under your nose. The same ring that paid for your fast-track promotions."
The lead man in the dark suit stepped forward, pulling a leather wallet to display a badge. Federal Bureau of Investigation. Behind him stood Marcus Vance himself—broad-shouldered, graying at the temples, with calm, steady eyes that immediately locked onto mine and Leo's. The silent strength in Marcus’s presence was everything Christopher had spent a lifetime faking.
"Christopher Alistair," the agent announced calmly. "You are being detained in connection with an ongoing federal investigation into treason, corporate espionage, and the reopened murder inquiry of Daisy Alistair."
Christopher looked wildly between Marcus, the FBI agent, and me. "Murder? It was an accident! I didn't know the latches were defectively sealed! Evelyn, tell them! I didn't mean for her to die!"
"You left her in an airtight container for three hours to satisfy your mistress, Christopher," Marcus said, his deep voice filling the room with absolute authority. He stepped up beside me, gently placing a protective hand on my lower back as I transferred the sleeping Leo to his arm. "And then, to cover your negligence, you allowed Jacqueline Miller to alter medical records, bribe base personnel, and attempt to murder Evelyn in that water filtration plant."
"I didn't try to murder her!" Christopher screamed, his composure completely shattering as restaurant patrons pulled out their phones to record the spectacle. "I was trying to force her to drop the court-martial charges! Jacqueline said the water tank was just an intimidation tactic! She said the valves were set to auto-shutoff at two feet!"
"Jacqueline lied to you about that, too," Marcus replied coldly. "The auto-shutoff line had been manually bypassed with a wire coat hanger. If Don Thomas hadn't called me to track Evelyn's cell phone signal that night, she would have been dead eight years ago, right beside your daughter."
Christopher slumped into the arms of the federal agents as the handcuffs clicked into place. The grand illusion of his life—that he was a misunderstood officer who had simply suffered a bad divorce—was dissolving into cold, inescapable reality.
As they led him out toward the waiting black sedans, he turned his head back toward me, his eyes wide with a desperate, pathetic plea. "Evelyn... please... where is she? Where is Daisy buried?"
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I looked at him, my heart entirely purged of the anger that had sustained me for nearly a decade. All that remained was absolute, crystalline clarity.
"You don't get to know her rest location, Christopher," I said quietly. "You gave up the right to be her father the moment you prioritized Jacqueline's lies over your daughter's breath."
