Page 31 of Broken Trust
Con nodded to Chase, and he left, closing the door behind him.
“Take his hood off,” Con ordered Mason.
He stepped forward, nose pinching at the odor of sweat and fear clinging to the man. Any other time in his career, he thought of people like this as threats. But now he saw him now through Elin’s eyes.
He was a husband, a father, a dog owner.
Mason pulled off the hood.
The man blinked and then looked around, recoiling when he saw three big SEALs with their faces concealed.
Under the harsh overhead light, his pupils contracted and his gaze darted from one masked face to the next. He couldn’t be more than mid-forties. Sweat soaked the collar of the T-shirt he’d been wearing when the police yanked him out of bed.
His fingers twitched where they rested on the table. Maybe in surrender. Maybe with the instinct to hide his face from their stares.
“Wh-what is this?” he stammered, voice rough from his ordeal. “Where am I?”
“Safe for now,” Con said evenly. He set a bottle of water in front of their prisoner and settled in the chair across from him, posture relaxed in the kind of way that scared people more than shouting ever could. “Name.”
The man took a sip of water and swallowed. “Charles. Charles Silverton.”
In another life, the man could’ve been anyone’s neighbor—the kind who mowed the yard on Saturdays and coached soccer. The thought tightened something in Mason’s chest.
Con nodded to Mason. “Baseline questions.”
Mason remained on his feet and faced Silverton. “We’re verifying your identity, Charles. Answer straight and you get through this quicker. Name of your first pet?”
Confusion flickered over his face. “Pet? Uh—Buster. A beagle, when I was a kid.”
“Favorite teacher?”
“Mrs. Lang.” He blinked rapidly. “Tenth-grade math. Why does this—”
“Street you grew up on?”
“Fairview Drive.” His breathing picked up. “What is this? Some kind of security check?”
Mason didn’t blink, but he knew without a doubt that Elin was watching this footage from the computer lab and using all of the security questions to dig deeper into Silverton’s life.
“Mother’s maiden name?”
“Talbot,” he whispered, panic pulsing in his tone.
“First car you owned?”
“A...a 1998 Honda Civic. Blue.”
“Your high school mascot?”
“Tigers. Riverside Tigers.”
“The month and year you got married?”
“June 2004. Why do you need—”
Mason cut him off. “Ever receive encrypted files you couldn’t explain, Charles?”
The abrupt shift made Silverton flinch. “What? No, I—”
