Chapter 4 - Before the Truck Leaves
Agent Cole did not let me ride to the terminal.
Cole explained that agents already had lawful authority to search specified records and vehicles. Taking a civilian witness to the terminal would risk lives and evidence. I could identify what I knew and stay available, not direct the operation.
At 4:13 a.m., Cole asked me to identify the warehouse office on an aerial photograph. I showed him the narrow side entrance where Nina and I had once attended a holiday food distribution. Miles used to keep donor archives in two lockable steel cabinets there, ostensibly because the building's climate-control system was more reliable than the charity office's.
“Did you see what was in the cabinets?” Cole asked.
“Grant applications. Photographs. Signed approval letters. We weren't supposed to keep everything there, but the office lost storage when it moved.”
Kira sat beside me with her coat still on. “Tell him what you saw, not what you think Miles intended.”
“I saw cabinets,” I said. “I don't know whether they're still full.”
It was a small distinction with enormous consequences.
The search team reached the terminal before dawn. Cole took their updates in another room. I watched the kitchen window brighten from black to gray and imagined the tire tracks on our driveway washing away. The recorder lay in an evidence bag with my initials on its seal. For the first time in months I was not responsible for keeping it charged, hidden, and dry.
At six, Cole returned.
“They stopped the truck before it left the property,” he said. “Several archive boxes are secured. We won't know what's relevant until they're inventoried.”
“What about Miles?”
“Not there.”
“And Nina?”
“Her home is secure. Our people spoke to her this morning.”
Nina was safe. Her interrupted phone call four months earlier had been a frightened misunderstanding: her adult son had arrived unexpectedly while she was talking to me. Fear made ordinary sounds seem sinister.
“Can I speak to her?”
“Coordinate that through counsel. You're both witnesses.”
Tony returned at seven with takeout coffee and his lawyer. He had not been arrested; the warrant did not remove his legal rights. But the emptied file cabinets made him seem less powerful than he had the night before.
“You slept here?” he asked, surveying the kitchen as if finding a stranger in his place.
“I didn't sleep.”
“That's not what I asked.”
Kira stood. “All communication concerning your marriage will go through counsel. Laura is leaving.”
Tony ignored her and looked at me. “I've got a story about a disloyal wife, too. She's the one who signed the vendor contracts. And she's the one who knew there were complaints.”
“That isn't the same as taking the money,” I said.
“No. It's worse. You were the one who told people everything had been fixed.”
I wanted to throw something. Not because he was right about the theft, but because he was right about the letters. Mrs. Brennan hadn't called Tony when she needed heat. She had called me.
Tony watched the recognition move across my face and smiled. “You've always hated being the villain.”
Kira stepped between us. “We're going.”
Outside, my clothes had been moved into two plastic bins beneath the awning. An employee had retrieved the passport from under the car and placed it carefully on top. The pages were damp and warped, but my photograph remained intact.
My grandmother saw the police at your house. She wants to know if the money for the apartments was stolen. She asked me to tell you she still has the letter.
I read it twice.
Tony could attack my motives and my signature. But Mrs. Brennan was no longer asking for a promise. She was asking a question that deserved an answer in plain words. I typed: The payments are under federal investigation. I don't know what the court will find. I am sorry we told you work was done when it wasn't.
Then I deleted the first sentence and called Kira over. “Can I send this?”
She read it, asked me to remove a speculation about the transfers, and said yes.
May you like
Before I pressed send, another message came through—from an attorney representing Tony.
His legal team had filed a civil complaint naming me as the person who authorized the missing payments.
