Page 59 of Deep Cover

On it was a name and a military service photo.

“Navy.” O sounded pleased with himself. “Petty Officer Danny Ruiz.”

Rorke was already on the phone with Blackout command, and Caryssa listened to a side of a conversation that slowly made her hopes sink.

Ruiz wasn’t stateside at the time that bomb was mailed. He was out of country on a cruise ship, four days into his honeymoon, with about two hundred witnesses and a paper trail a mile long.

Rorke cut the call. “It’s not him.”

“I’ll send the name and image to Doyle. See if he can get a match. But…” She trailed off, lost in thought.

It didn’t track. Nothing made sense in this entire thread of false identifications. Then she realized no one else had pointed it out.

“That’s two now,” she said slowly. “Ruiz, tied to the bomb. And the sailor whose ID got pinned to the Antonio’s shooting—the one they cleared after Phillip’s murder.”

She pulled both images onto the screen and studied them side by side.

“Two real servicemen whose identities ended up attached to crimes they had nothing to do with. But what if he didn’t just steal their names?”

Rorke’s attention sharpened.

“What if he chose them because he knew what they looked like?” She pointed between the photographs. “He finds someone with the same general build, similar features. Changes the hair, adds facial hair, whatever gets him close enough. Then bad surveillance footage does the rest.”

Rorke leaned closer to the screen. “You think whoever’s behind this knew the originals?”

“I think we need to find out.” Caryssa sat back. “If he served with Ruiz and this sailor, even briefly, that gives us a point of intersection.”

“Boot camp. Duty stations. Deployments,” Rorke said.

“Training assignments,” Rivers added slowly. “Temporary duty. Anywhere their records overlap with the same person.”

“That’s not a quick search,” O added.

“No. It’s slow and ugly, and it’s going to eat a full day at minimum.” She was ready to dive in, but just then her computer pinged at that moment with several incoming messages from Doyle. She set aside her sandwich and opened the first attachment.

Ruiz on his wedding day.

She pulled the post office image beside it. The resemblance was close enough to fool most people at a glance.

Nobody in this room was most people.

“He’s not as muscular in the post office shot,” she said. “Not even close.”

“And he has a scar.” Reid leaned in, his scent hitting her before he pointed above Ruiz’s eyebrow. “In the wedding photo.”

“You’re right.”

“O,” Cannon said.

Already moving, O pulled up every image of Ruiz he could find. His military ID showed no scar and a leaner build. The changes had come later.

Just as Reid had changed in the years they’d been apart, filling out through the shoulders and chest—

Caryssa dragged her attention back to the screen.

O brought up Ruiz’s medical history. The eyebrow injury had happened two years into his service.

Cannon folded his arms. “So the man at the post office was made to resemble an earlier version of Ruiz.”