It was a black SUV with tinted windows.

I couldn’t see the driver, but I could see the faint, blue glow of a phone screen inside the cabin.

They were watching the building.

I stepped back from the glass, letting the curtain fall.

The realization hit me like a cold wave: Cassandra didn’t just know I was investigating.

She was already ahead of me.

I went to my desk and opened my laptop, pulling up the files I had copied from the DOJ database before my clearance was revoked.

I scrolled through the names of the victims of the Bagram incident.

Private First Class Marcus Vance.

Corporal Leo Garza.

Sergeant William Miller.

All of them had died in a “training exercise gone wrong” according to the official report signed by Colonel Whitaker.

But Aaron’s testimony—the testimony the DOJ had buried—said they were killed to cover up a black-site interrogation that went too far.

And now, Cassandra was the one signing the checks that kept the surviving family members from talking.

The phone beside my laptop lightened up again.

It wasn’t a call.