Marcus

Chapter Five

 Marcus ~

Marcus' leg was bouncing as he impatiently waited for Lainey to arrive at Knight the next morning. Nate got called in on a short assignment for Charlie Team who was working a job overseas, so Nate called Lainey in early to help Marcus.

A part of him felt a tiny bit of guilt that she was forced to come in earlier than usual, but that guilt instantly faded away when he saw the bright smile on Lainey's face. She was eager and determined and it pumped Marcus full of energy despite the fact that he'd gotten very little sleep.

"You ready?" Lainey said brightly.

"Born ready, Hon." Marcus said, rubbing his hands together as if he were warming them up for a task as he took a seat across from Lainey in her office.

"Alright Nate filled me in on your conversation last night so the first thing I want to do is verify her death certificate and KIA report."

"Sounds like a good place to start." Marcus agreed, leaning forward and bracing his elbows on Lainey's desk. 

Lainey typed away on the computer, looking down a file on her right occasionally and muttering to herself. Every so often she'd tap the hard copy document a few times before mumbling something at the screen.

Marcus' bounced his leg in anticipation, trying not to seem impatient, but hating the waiting game he was forced to play. He grabbed a pen from Lainey's pen cup and started fidgeting with it to try and keep his idle mind busy and focused on something else. He clicked the pen nervously until Lainey's small hand flew out from behind the computer and clamped down in the pen, stopping the motion of his thumb and ending the clicking sound.

"That's not helping." Lainey said with a grin.

"Sorry."

Lainey got back to work, but quickly stopped typing and narrowed her eyes at the screen before shifting her gaze toward Marcus, letting out a soft sigh of disappointment.

"You sure you want to go down this rabbit hole Marcus?" Lainey asked, obviously having found something she knew would hurt him.

Marcus nodded vigorously, wanting every answer she could possibly supply no matter how it affected him emotionally. He needed the truth.

"I'm sure. Tell me what you found, Lainey, even if I won't like it."

Lainey pushed out a hard breath and readied herself to deliver news to Marcus that he knew must have been bad based on her body language and hesitation. She turned her computer screen to face him and pointed at a side by side shot of his death certificate next to Caroline's.

"Your death certificate was forged, very sloppily I might add. You see how this social is different from yours? Your middle name is also misspelled by one letter meaning that any public search wouldn't lead to this death certificate....but the same isn't true for Caroline's."

Marcus straightened in his chair and focused on the differences between the two documents that he never would have noticed without Lainey's help.

"Her social matches the social in the CIA employee records, it also has everything spelled correctly and none of the strange redaction markings that yours have. When I do a public search for Caroline, her death certificate and KIA report come up instantly." Lainey said looking at Marcus, trying to read his reaction as he processed what she was saying.

"So what does that mean exactly?"

"It means that your death certificate and KIA report are fakes...but hers are legit." Lainey's voice was soft and apologetic in nature as if she'd done something wrong by saying the words out loud.