Chapter 9: The Weight of What He Carried
Cameron talked to Detective Carver for forty minutes in the hallway.
The Savannah case was three years old.
A retired couple named the Hendersons had invested $180,000 in a residential development fund that existed only on paper.
The fund's representative had been a man using the name Christopher Logan — Logan's middle and last name, reversed.
The couple had lost everything they had saved outside their pension.
The case had gone cold when the representative disappeared.
Carver had a photograph.
She texted it while they were still on the phone.
Cameron looked at it.
Younger.
Shorter hair.
A different jacket.
But the smile was the same smile Logan had worn when he walked into the birthday party carrying champagne.
"That's him," Cameron said.
"You're certain?"
"Completely."
Carver was quiet for a moment.
"Mr.
Blake, I want to be straightforward with you.
The Savannah case gives us a prior pattern.
Combined with what Webb has in Atlanta, we have enough to pursue federal wire fraud charges in addition to the state counts.
That changes the sentencing exposure significantly."
"How significantly?"
"The difference between a negotiated plea with minimal time and something considerably longer." A pause.
"Logan Pierce is going to need a very good lawyer."
"He mentioned he has one on retainer."
"He's going to need a better one."
Cameron ended the call and stood in the hallway for a moment.
Through the glass, he could see Natalie still writing.
Webb was across from her, reading what she had already completed.
Grace was making notes in the margin of her own copy.
He thought about the fourteen months.
The forensic accountant he had hired quietly — a man named Gerald Foss who worked out of a small office in Midtown and billed by the hour and never asked why a client needed discretion.
The evenings Cameron had spent cross-referencing statements at the kitchen table after Natalie went to sleep.
The Sunday afternoon he had driven to Decatur and sat in his car outside the coffee shop in the photograph, trying to understand how long it had been going on and whether the woman he had married had any part in it.
He had been almost certain she didn't.
Almost.
That one remaining fraction of doubt had been the hardest part of the fourteen months.
Not the money.
Not the betrayal.
The not-knowing.
He went back into the conference room.
Natalie looked up when he sat down.
"Savannah," he said.
"Logan ran a version of this three years ago under a different name.
A retired couple.
They lost $180,000."
Natalie set down her pen.
"He's done this before," she said.
It wasn't a question.
"At least twice that we know of.
Carver thinks there may be more."
Webb looked up from the statement pages.
"Detective Carver and I spoke this morning.
The federal angle is being evaluated.
If it proceeds, the case moves to a different level entirely."
"Good," Natalie said.
She picked up her pen and continued writing.
Cameron watched her for a moment.
Then he said, quietly, "I'm sorry I didn't tell you sooner."
She didn't stop writing.
"You were protecting me," she said.
"I was also protecting the case."
"I know." She turned a page.
"I've been thinking about that.
The fourteen months." She paused, pen still in hand.
"You watched me have coffee with him.
You watched me invite him to things.
You watched me tell you he was harmless."
"Yes."
"That must have been very difficult."
He didn't answer immediately.
"There were nights," he said, "when I almost said something.
When I thought — just tell her.
Let her react however she reacts.
Stop carrying it alone."
"Why didn't you?"
"Because I kept thinking about the Hendersons in Savannah.
Whoever they were.
I didn't know about them yet, but I knew there was a pattern.
And I thought — if I say something too soon and Logan disappears, someone else becomes the next Natalie.
The next person he uses." He looked at the table.
"I needed it to be complete enough that he couldn't walk away from it."
Natalie was quiet for a long moment.
Then she said, "You carried all of that to protect me and to protect people you didn't even know."
"I tried to."
She looked at him.
"Cameron." Her voice was steady.
"I need you to know something."
"Okay."
"When he said those words at the party — 'Natalie is useful, but she's temporary' — I want you to know that hearing that in front of sixty people, in front of you, was one of the worst moments of my life." She held his gaze.
"Not because of what it said about him.
Because of what I thought it might make you believe about me."
He said nothing.
"I need to know," she said.
"Right now, not later.
Do you believe me?"
"Yes," he said.
"I believe you."
She held his gaze for another moment.
Then she nodded once, turned back to the statement, and kept writing.
Webb's phone buzzed on the table.
He read the message and looked up.
"Logan Pierce just retained new counsel," he said.
"A firm out of Buckhead.
Three partners, all former federal prosecutors."
Grace didn't look up from her notes.
"Good.
That means he's taking this seriously."
"It also means," Webb said, "that his new attorneys are going to advise him to offer something before we finish building the full case."
"What kind of something?" Cameron asked.
Webb folded his hands.
"Pruitt," he said.
"Logan will offer us Pruitt.
The full structure, the other victims, the routing details we haven't traced yet.
In exchange for a reduced charge and a sentencing recommendation."
"Will you take it?" Natalie asked.
Webb considered for a moment.
"That depends on what he knows," he said.
"And whether it's worth more than what we already have."
He looked at the stack of documents on the table.
May you like
"Finish the statement," he said.
"Let's make sure we don't need him."
