Page 38 of The Vigilante's Lover
“Klaus was my friend,” I say through gritted teeth. “He had an entry. When a record is deleted, the system is flagged.” I lean over the table. “Search. The. Flags.”
Carter stares at me a moment, and I think he’ll just deny my request. But he picks up the tablet. As he taps, concern crosses his brow and his finger strikes on the surface become faster, more insistent.
“All right,” he says. “I found a flag in the system attached to the name Klaus. It’s not a personnel record. Just a death notice.”
“A what?” I lean closer.
“It’s weird.” Carter keeps tapping. “If I search the flags, I show a death notice for Klaus, but no evidence that he was ever alive.”
“How did he die?” My throat is tight.
“It doesn’t say. Just that he’s dead.” Carter frowns. “This is high-level tampering. Nobody can die without having a living record.”
“May I?” I hold out my hand for the tablet.
Carter hesitates, then hands it over. I quickly search for flags on deleted entries involving the Tennessee safe house.
Sure enough, one comes up. The closure of the safe house due to “toxic chemical contamination.” It’s the same date and entry as Klaus’s death.
There is no toxic chemical there. It was a ploy to close it. To hide what they did. Klaus died at the safe house and someone deleted him to cover their tracks.
Jovana.
And her lackey temptress.
Mia.
I push the pad at Carter and sit back down.
But Carter stands to leave. “I’ll be sure to add this to my report,” he says. “Perhaps your role in helping identify the fraudulent record will be of help to you in a future hearing.” He shrugs. “If you survive even a day in New Attica.”
He nods at the guard and the two of them move to the door.
It hisses closed behind them.
I’m alone for the moment, but I’m not done here. I still have a skeleton key.
And I have a lying, murdering honey-haired safe house operative to locate in this building. And to interrogate. And if necessary, to take out of commission.
18: Mia
I’m sick of sitting with this Dell woman. I want out of here to find Jax.
The doors open again, and the girl Katya enters with a tray of small sandwiches.
Dell stands up. “Katya, you sit with Mia a while. I’m going to check on the status of her release approval.”
Katya nods as she sets the tray on the coffee table. She perches uncertainly on the far end of the sofa.
Dell turns to me. “I’ll be back very shortly. Let us know if you need anything to make you comfortable.”
I glance down at the stilettos. “You wouldn’t happen to have a shoe store nearby, would you?”
Not that I have money. I left home with only a now-destroyed nightgown and my Crocs. Not so much as a driver’s license, I realize. No one would know if I disappeared. No one would even look, other than maybe the neighbor, Shirley.
“You’ll be home soon,” Dell says. “We’re here to help you.”
She exits through the door. To keep track of which one she uses, Iimagine I am sitting at six o’clock and the door is at two. Maybe I can keep them straight that way. Katya came in at ten o’clock, so the kitchen must be that way.
