Chapter 6 - THE BOUNTY CONTRACT
June told the truth in pieces.
Rachel Morgan had once worked as a forensic accountant for Voss Strategic Holdings. She discovered diversion accounts hidden inside charitable cargo companies. When she realized the money linked to child trafficking, she copied records and went to federal contacts.
Two of those contacts died in what the news called an aircraft malfunction.
After that, Rachel ran.
The bounty was not public. It was private. Distributed through criminal channels to deniable contractors like Cole.
Alive if possible because Rachel might still know where duplicate evidence was stored.
Dead if necessary because the network preferred silence to uncertainty.
“Why keep the kids with her?” Cole asked.
June gave him a look of pure contempt.
“She was their mother.”
He let that land.
June continued.
“Rachel split the evidence. One copy with her. One copy with me. One copy hidden where no one would think to look.”
“Where?”
June folded her arms.
“If I thought you were one of them, would I answer?”
Emma finally spoke.
“Can you find my mom?”
June’s face softened.
“Maybe.”
That maybe lasted six minutes.
Then headlights flashed across the living-room wall.
More than one vehicle.
Cole reached the window first and saw two SUVs and a dark pickup rolling silently into position.
He cursed.
“They tailed us better than I thought.”
June already had shotgun shells in one pocket and a second phone in the other.
“Back room,” she ordered Emma.
Emma hugged Noah and ran.
Cole caught June by the wrist.
“If Rachel contacts you, what phrase does she use so I know it’s real?”
June pulled free.
“She says, ‘Tell Emma the moon song.’”
He frowned.
“What the hell does that mean?”
May you like
“It means she’s really their mother.”
Then the first window shattered.
