Page 64 of Lost Hope

Griffin went still.

“Back in ‘89, we had this case—a serial burglar who specialized in home break-ins,” Lawrence explained. “He was smart. Only hit high-end homes in isolated areas. Places with expensive security systems that were somehow on the fritz. Weinterrogated every employee at every alarm company, right down to the janitors. Nothing. Took us a year to catch him. Turns out, his accomplice was at the Building Department. Any permits issued for home security systems got passed along to him. I think the minute you searched for those VA files, you lit up their radar somehow.” He turned to Star and Ethan and Zara. “That’s doable, right?”

The three computer whizzes murmured their assent.

“But I used a secure terminal protocol,” Griffin protested quietly.

“Doesn’t matter.” Lawrence clapped him on the shoulder. “They weren’t tracking you, son. They were tracking what you were looking for. Anyone digging into those specific medical records would trigger their system.”

“Then they’d follow the tracks,” Zara added, locking eyes with Star. “Eventually, they’d get past your protocol.”

Star nodded. “And they’d locate the exact terminals.”

Ronan watched understanding dawn on Axel’s face. “They set up a digital tripwire.”

Lawrence tapped the end of his nose. “Bingo. Just like my thief used permit requests. Only now it’s all algorithms and cloud computing whatchamacallits. Same detective work, different century.”

The room went quiet. Even Victoria’s pen stopped moving.

“The research you were doing,” Lawrence said carefully. “It wasn’t just about current VA patients, was it?”

Griffin stared at his hands, fingers working against each other. “You guys already know Tank was working at the VA outreach center in San Diego. A couple of months ago, a woman came in. Her uncle, a Gulf War vet, vanished. Police said he probably just took off—guy had some minor mental health issues, history of disappearing for a few days. But she knew something was wrong. Tank told the woman he’d check into it.”

“Why Marcus?” Victoria asked, pen poised.

Ronan’s arm throbbed as he shifted position, something about Griffin’s tension setting off warning bells.

“He worked the outreach desk twice a week. Veterans trusted him.” Griffin’s jaw tightened, and he pushed himself up to pace the small space. “Turns out, the uncle had gone to the local VA clinic for some kind of minor health thing. High blood pressure or something.”

The familiar cold settled in Ronan’s gut—the same feeling he got before missions went sideways.

Griffin stopped at the window, his reflection stark against the darkness outside. “Anyway, three days later, the guy disappears. Tank messed around in the clinic files. Saw a whole handful of similar cases. Mostly nobody reported them because the vets either lived alone, or died. Suicides or accidents.”

Kate made a small sound, and Mike’s hand found hers.

Ronan’s hands clenched involuntarily. He could see where this was going.

“The deeper he dug, the more suspect cases he found. And he’d barely touched the clinics in Southern California.” Griffin turned back, meeting Ronan’s eyes. “So he called me.”

The pain meds were wearing off, but Ronan barely noticed now. His whole focus was on Griffin, who seemed to be carrying the weight of what came next.

“Marcus called me because ...” Griffin’s voice roughened. He dropped into his chair like his legs wouldn’t hold him. “Because he knew I’d believe him. That I’d understand why a bunch of vulnerable vets suddenly deciding to vanish wasn’t right.”

“How many?” Ronan forced the words past the tightness in his throat.

Griffin’s hands trembled slightly as he reached for his water. “Fifteen vets so far that we confirmed. All in the last eight months. They’d get called in for new evaluations, medical tests,biometric scans—way more extensive than usual VA protocols. Then they’d vanish.”

Mike’s hand went to the bandage at the crook of his arm where they’d taken blood samples.

The silence that followed felt like a physical presence until Christian leaned forward, breaking it. “They’re harvesting their data before killing them.” He clasped his hands behind his neck, squeezing hard. “The why we can work out later. I say we start with the who and the what.”

“Copy that,” Austin answered before Ronan could.

Murmurs of assent filled the space.

Hands on his hips, Axel paced the outer edges of the room. “Then we need to look at the footage. Security cameras, waiting room videos, anything from the VA facilities where these tests happened.”

Star squinted at her monitor. “The Santa Monica clinic keeps their security feeds for ninety days. Policy after an incident with the pharmacy break-in last year.”

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