stood at his post, his expression carefully neutral.
“Camille was here for work.”
“With your hand around her waist?”
He did not answer.
Ortiz led them into a small conference room near the administrative entrance.
Patrick was told to surrender his building access card and government phone temporarily.
He placed both on the table with controlled movements, but a pulse beat visibly at his temple.
Camille arrived before the first interview began.
She came through the corridor pulling a compact suitcase, her cream-colored coat buttoned unevenly.
When she saw Katherine, she stopped.
“What did you do?” Camille demanded.
Ortiz raised a hand.
“Ms.
Dupont, do not discuss the review with Commander Sinclair.”
Camille ignored her and turned to Patrick.
“You said Katherine could never trace the funding.
You said her brothers kept her out of everything.”
The room went silent.
Patrick’s face changed from fear to fury.
“Stop talking.”
Camille finally seemed to notice the two investigators, the unit attorney and Miller standing near the doorway with a copied access log.
“I didn’t mean—”
“Sit down,” Ortiz said.
Katherine took a chair at the far end of the table.
She did not feel triumphant.
She felt tired, as though the morning had aged her by several years.
Yet beneath the exhaustion was something solid: she was no longer guessing.
Ortiz opened the folder and arranged the evidence in careful rows.
The first group contained invoices from Dupont Strategic Solutions.
The company had been formed eighteen months earlier, only six weeks before Patrick recommended it for emergency consulting work.
Camille was listed as sole owner.
Her business address was a mailbox at a private shipping center.
The second group contained access records.
Camille had entered the unit thirty-two times in five months, although only eleven visits appeared on the approved contractor schedule.
On seven occasions, staff members had added her name after she left.
The third group contained emails from Patrick’s official account.
In one, he called Camille an independent operational adviser and instructed security to treat her as a recurring official guest.
In another, he warned a junior administrator that questioning Camille’s invoices could affect the administrator’s leadership recommendation.
The final email was addressed to Camille.
It read, “Katherine never reviews the numbers.
Her family signs whatever keeps my initiatives visible.
Once the next endorsement is secured, we won’t need to be careful.”
Patrick leaned forward.
“That sentence is being misinterpreted.”
Katherine looked at him.
“Which part? The lie about me, the threat to your employee or the promise that you and Camille wouldn’t need to be careful?”
“You’re making this personal.”
“It became personal when Noah heard a guard call her your girlfriend.”
Miller’s eyes dropped.
Patrick seized on the detail.
“A guard’s inappropriate comment is not evidence.”
Miller stepped forward.
“Sir, the wording came from Lieutenant Harrow.
He said you instructed the front desk not to admit your wife while Ms.
Dupont was present.”
“That is not what I said.”
Miller unfolded the access-log copy and placed it on the table.
“At 7:51 this morning, Ms.
Dupont entered without an appointment.
At 8:05, Lieutenant Harrow told us the commander’s family was not to be admitted.
At 9:12, the original entry was changed to show a scheduled strategy meeting.”
Mercer compared the copy with the digital record on his
