Chapter 4 - Noah Carter Had Never Died
Noah Carter supposedly died eight years earlier in Afghanistan.
There had been a memorial.
A folded flag.
A closed casket.
Sophia had mourned him for years.
Richard now claimed the hooded man was Noah.
Ethan thought grief had broken him.
Then Richard showed a photograph.
Taken two months earlier.
Sophia stood outside a diner with a thin, bearded man.
The man’s face was older.
Scarred.
But Ethan recognized the eyes from wedding photographs.
Noah.
Alive.
Richard explained carefully.
Noah had worked on a classified intelligence-support assignment after
leaving regular military service.
His reported death had been part of a protected identity arrangement
after a compromised operation.
Richard had not known for years.
Sophia learned only recently when Noah contacted her.
Ethan did not accept the story blindly.
He asked for evidence.
Richard provided a number for the federal investigator who had already
been contacted after Sophia’s hospitalization.
The investigator confirmed only that Noah Carter was alive and that
portions of his history remained restricted.
Enough.
Not everything.
Ethan’s anger shifted.
“If Noah found Sophia, why lie about the alley?”
Richard said Noah believed the attacker might have access to local
police information.
Moving the apparent crime scene was supposed to buy time.
It was a terrible decision.
Richard admitted that.
They moved Sophia before police arrived.
Noah drove her toward the hospital.
Richard called emergency services from a location near the alley and
reported finding her there.
“That destroyed the real crime scene.”
“I know.”
“You scrubbed my kitchen?”
Richard looked sick.
“No.”
Ethan went still.
“Then who did?”
Richard and Noah had left the house within minutes.
Neither returned.
The bleach had been used later.
Which meant someone had entered Ethan’s home after Sophia was taken
May you like
away.
Someone who knew exactly what evidence needed to disappear.
