“She asked you for help?” he said.
“She asked me to make sure you could not find her.”
“And you did.”
“I moved her records. I established a quiet support channel. I made certain there was money when she needed it.”
Ortiz looked sharply at the screen. “The support payments stopped three years ago.”
Sloane gave a thin shrug. “Budgets change.”
“The payments did not stop,” Ortiz said. Her voice had become cold. “They were rerouted to your accounts.”
Silence spread across the room.
Graves saw the smallest change in Sloane’s eyes. Not guilt. Annoyance.
“You stole from her,” Graves said.
“I managed assets.”
“You made her poor.”
“I made her dependent on reality,” Sloane snapped. “You wanted a daughter who would forgive you because you threw money at her. I gave her the chance to live without you.”
“You put an eviction notice on her door.”
“I did what was necessary.”
Graves stepped closer. “Necessary for what?”
Sloane’s composure finally cracked. “For you to remain what this country needed you to be.”
The colonel’s voice rose, not loudly, but with years of resentment pressed into every word.
“You were going to resign when Miriam died. You were going to abandon your command for a girl who hated you and a child you had never met. I kept you focused. I carried your burdens. I handled the weak points in your life because you never had the stomach to make hard decisions cleanly.”
“You call this clean?” Graves asked.
“I call it survival.”
The command room door burst open.
Sergeant Miller stood there, breathing hard. “Sir. The family services office has been breached.”
Graves turned.
“Ruby?” he said.
Miller’s face answered before his mouth did.
“She is gone.”
The world narrowed.
Graves crossed the room so fast that Ortiz had to step aside. “Who took her?”
“A man in maintenance coveralls. He showed a temporary access pass. He said he was sent to bring her to you.”
Sloane moved toward the door.
Graves caught him by the front of his uniform and slammed him against the wall.
The security officers raised their weapons.
“Stand down!” Ortiz shouted.
Sloane did not struggle. He simply looked into Graves’s face.
“You locked the exits,” he said softly. “Your men obeyed. But fear always gives people a door.”
“Where is she?”
“You should ask yourself what kind of grandfather lets a child walk into a military base carrying evidence.”
Graves’s grip tightened.
“Where is Ruby?”
