Chapter 16 - The Old Laptop
The false company changed everything.
If Daniel could make me look like a participant, he could muddy every accusation.
Rachel spent six hours tracing registrations.
The business address was a virtual office.
The contact number was prepaid.
The registration had been completed online.
Then she found one weakness.
The recovery email.
It was partially hidden.
But the last four visible characters meant something to me.
JLC7.
I knew them.
Seven years earlier, when Daniel and I were dating, he had bought me a cheap laptop after mine broke.
He set up an email address for me.
My initials before marriage.
Jennifer Lynn Collins.
JLC.
Seven because it was his “lucky number.”
I had forgotten the account existed.
Daniel had not.
“Can you recover it?” Rachel asked.
“Maybe.”
The laptop itself was in a box at my house.
David did not want me going there.
Robert offered to retrieve it.
Daniel had been ordered to stay elsewhere during the initial investigation.
Two hours later, Robert brought the box.
The laptop barely started.
But it started.
The old email account was still logged in.
There were hundreds of unread junk messages.
Then Rachel found a folder called Archive.
Someone had used the account recently.
Password resets.
Business registrations.
Bank authentication emails.
Insurance correspondence.
The fake consulting company.
LMC Holdings.
Everything connected back to the old account Daniel had created for me.
Then I saw one email from three months earlier.
Subject: Surveillance Summary – Week 11.
Sender:
Marcus Bennett.
Rachel opened it.
Attached was a report about me.
My schedule.
My pregnancy appointments.
My work hours.
My mother’s address.
Even the route I drove home.
At the bottom was a note.
Client requested escalation after delivery.
I looked at David.
“Escalation?”
Rachel opened the next report.
Objective: establish pattern of instability and impaired judgment.
Then another.
Client requests documentation involving infant whenever possible.
My hands went cold.
Marcus had not merely watched me.
He had been instructed to catch moments that could be used against me.
Then Rachel found an email that changed the direction again.
It was from Daniel.
To Marcus.
Two months before Lily was born.
Do not contact Chloe directly anymore. She is starting to ask questions.
Underneath:
Once the asset transfer is complete, we cut her out too.
I stared at the screen.
Chloe had thought she was Daniel’s future.
She had never been.
She was another target.
Rachel kept scrolling.
Then she stopped.
“There.”
Attached to Daniel’s message was a spreadsheet.
Three names appeared in separate columns.
Jennifer.
Chloe.
Robert.
And across the top was one title.
May you like
EXIT STRATEGY.
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