Chapter 6 - David’s condition
Michael wanted to answer immediately.
Mara stopped him.
“We preserve the communication.”
David sent another message.
NO POLICE.
COME ALONE.
I’LL GIVE YOU SCOUT AND THE DRIVE.
Mara almost smiled.
“He knows federal agents are already involved. ‘No police’ doesn’t mean much now.”
Michael stared.
“I’m going.”
“Not alone.”
“He’ll run.”
“Then we control what we can.”
Erin grabbed Michael’s arm.
“You are not disappearing too.”
He looked at her.
“I won’t.”
That promise needed rebuilding before it meant much.
Agents traced the message to a motel near the state line.
David was gone before they arrived.
But Scout had been there.
A clerk remembered the puppy.
“Friendly little thing.”
Erin nearly cried from relief.
David had bought bottled water and plain chicken.
He was feeding Scout.
Keeping him alive.
The clerk also remembered another man.
Older.
Gray jacket.
Met David briefly in the parking lot.
Security footage captured his face.
Michael stared.
“That’s Uncle Raymond.”
Walter’s younger brother.
Raymond Cole had supposedly died four years earlier.
Heart attack in Arizona.
Erin looked at Michael.
“You went to his funeral?”
“No. Dad said there was a private cremation.”
Mara’s expression hardened.
“Do you have a death certificate?”
Michael had never seen one.
Federal records showed Raymond Cole deceased.
But the man on camera was almost certainly him.
One more family lie.
Raymond had worked with Walter when Cole Regional Foods first expanded.
Then disappeared after a financial scandal twenty years ago.
His supposed death conveniently ended several civil claims.
Mara searched deeper.
Raymond’s Social Security number had not been used.
But a consulting company called R.C. Logistics received payments from Walter’s old research annex.
Raymond had been alive and involved the entire time.
Maybe David’s warning referred to him.
Mara asked Michael:
“What was Raymond like?”
“Dad trusted him more than anyone.”
“More than David?”
“Yes.”
“More than you?”
Michael laughed bitterly.
“Definitely.”
Then Erin remembered Judith’s note.
M. MUST STOP LOOKING.
Maybe Michael was not the only M.
Could be Mara?
Mercer? No.
Mara looked at the pressure marks again.
Another incomplete line appeared beneath.
R. WILL HANDLE TRANSFER.
Raymond.
The pieces aligned.
Walter was involved.
Judith helped.
David transported Scout.
Raymond handled transfer.
But transfer of what?
The puppy?
The memory component?
Something larger?
Then David called.
Not text.
Michael answered on speaker under controlled recording.
“Where is Scout?”
“Safe.”
“Prove it.”
A bark sounded in the background.
Sophie, waiting in the adjoining room with Erin, heard it.
“Scout!”
Erin held her.
Michael’s eyes filled.
“Let me have him.”
David’s voice sounded exhausted.
“I’m trying to.”
“Then bring him.”
“If I walk into a federal office, Raymond gets to him before I finish talking.”
“Raymond is alive?”
Silence.
“David.”
“You found that out.”
“What does he want?”
“The chip.”
“The flash drive?”
“That’s not all it is.”
Michael frowned.
“What do you mean?”
David lowered his voice.
“Dad kept shipment ledgers on that drive, yes.”
“Then?”
“Raymond stored payment codes.”
“For what?”
“I’m not saying over the phone.”
“Why?”
“Because you still think this is about mislabeled meat.”
Michael looked toward Mara.
“What is it about?”
David whispered:
“Animals were being moved through the food network because nobody checks the paperwork the same way when the destination codes look agricultural.”
Erin felt cold.
Mara’s expression sharpened.
“Live animals?” Michael asked.
“Sometimes.”
“What kind?”
David stopped.
Then:
“Dogs.”
Erin stared.
A trafficking network.
Not only animal products.
Dogs moved under false transport records.
Possibly stolen.
Possibly illegally bred.
The puppy in their family home had accidentally uncovered evidence of a larger interstate operation.
David continued:
“Scout’s microchip number appears in the ledger.”
Erin froze.
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
Michael’s voice hardened.
“You brought him into this.”
“No.”
“Then who did?”
David answered:
“Your mother.”
Judith.
Erin looked toward Sophie.
David added:
May you like
“She knew exactly where Scout came from before Sophie ever adopted him.”
👉 David revealed that Scout’s own microchip appeared in the trafficking records—and Judith had known the puppy’s hidden history from the beginning.
