Chapter 8 - THE EMPTY MILITARY HOUSES
Detective Ortiz forbade Frank from joining the search.
He agreed.
Then he sat in the command vehicle two blocks away and watched officers enter the abandoned housing complex.
The location had once belonged to a small National Guard facility.
Ward had supervised its closure six years earlier.
The first house was empty.
The second contained military surplus equipment and Apex shipping boxes.
Inside the third, police found Sophie tied to a chair.
She was frightened but physically unharmed.
Maya’s laptop sat on a table.
Beside it was a black duffel bag containing Ryan’s stolen phone, student ID, and hoodie.
The attackers had stored every piece of planted evidence together.
A man fled through the rear door.
Officers arrested him near the tree line.
His name was Travis Cole.
He worked as a contract security technician for Apex Defense.
The white patch from Ryan’s hoodie carried fibers from Travis’s truck.
His boots matched a print found near Maya.
But Travis had not acted alone.
One witness had pulled Maya away from the hallway camera while another struck her.
Sophie identified the second man.
Owen Price.
Professor Lang’s laboratory operations manager.
Price was a former Army logistics officer and one of the three men Frank had named as owning an eagle ring.
Police arrested him at his apartment.
He claimed he had never entered the science building that night.
His right hand showed a fresh cut around the ring finger.
The silver eagle ring was missing.
Investigators found it inside the drain of Maya’s laboratory sink.
A trace of Maya’s blood remained beneath the stone.
Frank listened to the evidence briefing in silence.
Ortiz watched him carefully.
“You knew Price?”
“He served under Ward.”
“Did you trust him?”
“Ward trusted him.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
Frank looked away.
In the Army, Ward had protected Price after a convoy inventory scandal.
Frank believed the incident had been a paperwork error.
Now he wondered whether Ward had been teaching Price how loyalty could erase misconduct.
Sophie told detectives that Ward threatened her brother’s scholarship unless she gave him Maya’s laptop location.
She believed he only wanted the computer.
When she delivered it, Travis forced her into a vehicle.
Sophie heard Ward speaking through the car’s hands-free system.
“Keep her quiet until the files are secured.”
The laptop’s encrypted drive could not be opened without Maya’s password.
That was why the attackers returned to the science building.
They believed Maya carried a second copy.
They were right.
But they never found the smallest device in her possession.
During surgery, a nurse had discovered a microSD card taped beneath Maya’s watchband.
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It contained the complete Aegis trial database.
👉 Police had the attackers and the hidden data, but both men insisted Ward never ordered violence—and Professor Lang was preparing to blame everything on them.
