Page 86 of Critical Doubt

"He won't care, and I'll get Parisa involved as well. In fact, we might want to pull in Jared."

"I had the same thought. If he can pull any information from the CIA files on Ryker's last mission, we might find a clue. That's where everything started." She paused. "I really appreciate this, Flynn."

"We're a team. When someone has a need, we all step up; you know that. I just wish you'd gotten us involved sooner."

"Everything has been happening very quickly."

"Stay safe until I can get you backup."

"Believe me, I'm not going anywhere."

She set down the phone as Ryker returned to the waiting room and handed her a coffee.

"Machine was broken, so I went to the cafeteria," he said.

"I'm sure this will be better than anything out of a machine."

"Did you reach your boss?" he asked, as he sat back down.

"Yes. The cavalry is on the way. We should have some help within the hour."

"Good."

"My boss will also set up security for Paul here at the hospital and for Abby when she arrives."

"He sounds like a man who gets things done."

"He is definitely that." She paused, realizing that she'd been so personally caught up in what had been going on that she hadn't done what she needed to do. "Paul's personal effects," she said, getting to her feet. "He probably had a phone on him, maybe some other clue. I should have taken his phone at the scene. I need to get whatever he had on him. I'm going to check with the nurse."

After showing her badge to the nurse, she was given a large plastic bag containing Paul's belongings. She took it back into the waiting room. Sitting down next to Ryker, she removed Paul's wallet and handed it to him. Then she pulled out Paul's phone. It appeared to be a cheap burner phone, probably bought with cash somewhere, but hopefully they could still trace where it had been.

"Look at this," Ryker said, handing her a driver's license.

The photo wasn't exactly Paul, but close. The name on the ID was Walter Rogers. The address was Atlanta. "This looks like Paul but with altered features. The nose is thicker, the brows darker, the hair almost black and the glasses distort his eyes."

"He clearly wanted to disappear and become someone else. There are no credit cards, but there is a receipt for a dozen bagels and three coffees from Bagel Mania in DC."

"That's great," she said with excitement. "The order is clearly for more than one person. Maybe we can pull security footage from the bagel shop. This could be huge."

"What about this? There appears to be about two-thousand dollars in cash." He pulled out a thick stack of hundreds. "I thought Paul allegedly died in debt."

"He did say his death was supposed to be better for Abby. Maybe he died so Abby would get the insurance money."

"Then how did he get this cash? There's another plan in play besides insurance, although that could be a factor. Every time someone died, their heirs would get a payoff. That could be the reason for becoming ghosts."

"It's actually very clever. Who would come up with that?"

He thought for a moment. "Out of the four of them, I'd say Mason or Hank. I don't think Paul or Todd were the ringleaders. Paul obviously didn't want to take me out. And Todd was always the most nervous, the biggest worrier. This doesn't feel like him."

"Plus, we know Todd was being persuaded to become a ghost. And someone told him the timeline had been moved up. Maybe he had to fake his death earlier than he had thought. Perhaps that's why his house was set on fire. He didn't have time to remove some piece of evidence. I know it's all speculation, but we have to start somewhere."

"Well, Hank works at a gym, doesn't have a lot of money, but he does have a lot of confidence in his abilities. I can see him being the new ringleader. He was always after my job. But Mason is smarter."

"Mason works for a weapons manufacturer, a job my father and Colonel Vance helped him get. Is that a clue?"

"It might be."

"Well, while we ponder that, I'm going to text my team with Paul's number and the information about the bagel shop," she said.

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