Page 33 of Her Forever SEAL

“Hi Kayla, you look beautiful.”

“Thanks, Aunt Angie. Mom and Aunt Lydia are in the kitchen arguing.”

“Why are they arguing?”

“Aunt Lydia said I was old enough to date.”

“You’re only fourteen,” she exclaimed.

Kayla giggled.

They walked into the kitchen. Neither Lydia nor her mom were talking. But Lydia now had a glass of sangria in front of her, and she was grinning. “Hi, Angie.”

“Kayla is too young to date,” Angie said.

“So I’ve heard.”

“Who’s watching Declan and Nora?” Sophia asked Aunt Angie.

“Rebecca. I mentioned I was coming over and she volunteered. She said she had papers to grade. The only caveat is that I need to bring home some of your baked goods. You better have something here.” Angie pointed her finger at Sophia’s chest.

Sophia laughed. “I baked brownies.”

“How are you not three hundred pounds?” Lydia asked as she scooped up more crab dip.

“Self-control.”

“Okay, we’ve established Kayla isn’t dating,” Lydia said, but she looked at Kayla. “Seriously though, sweetheart. The three of us need to talk privately.”

“Actually, Kayla needs to be part of this conversation,” Sophia said.

Angie frowned.

“What?” The scoop of crab dip that Lydia was going to bite into froze in space.

“She has information related to all of this. She has it from Peggy and Lettie’s daughters' perspective.”

“Please don’t tell me it’s bad news,” Angie whispered.

“It’s not good.” Kayla whispered back.

“Shit.” Lydia set down her snack on the napkin in front of her.

“Okay, what do you have?” Sophia asked Lydia.

Lydia looked down at her tablet. “I've been digging into Mary. On the surface she's completely real. Employment history, a rental history going back four years in Phoenix, a college transcript from ASU, tax records, a dormant Instagram she never posted on but that existed. Everything you'd expect.” She paused. “It's good work. Whoever built her identity knew exactly what a background check looks for and gave it everything it needed.”

“But?” Sophia asked.

“But Rylie and I have been doing this a long time.” Lydia set down the tablet. “The documents are real. The accounts are real. The paper trail is real. But the texture is wrong. When an actual person lives a life, the digital record of it is messy. Inconsistent. You get a gap when someone's going through something, a burst of activity when they're happy, random things that don't connect to anything. Mary's record is too clean. Too evenly distributed. It's the work of someone who understands what a real life looks like and constructed a version of one, but they built it from the outside in.” She looked at Sophia. “A real person doesn't look like a real person on paper. Mary looks exactly like a real person on paper. That's the tell.”

“Who’s Mary?” Kayla asked.

“She’s a barista at the Bay Brew, five blocks from the bakery. I saw her and Bree’s mom having a really intense conversation a few days ago. It wasn’t right.”

Kayla frowned.

“What’s more, when she handed me my coffee, she knew my last name, but I’d paid in cash, so I don’t know how she could have.”