Chapter 4: What Raymond Colt Remembered
I showed Aiden the message.
He read it twice.
Then he stood up, walked to the window, and looked out at the street below.
"He knows we found the photograph," he said.
"How?
We found it twenty minutes ago."
"He's been watching." Aiden turned back.
"Or someone has been watching for him.
I should have anticipated this."
"You should have told me about this investigation the moment you knew who I was."
"Yes." He didn't argue.
"I should have."
I picked up my phone and read the message again.
*Stop looking.
For both.* For both.
Not just for me.
For Aiden too.
Which meant Raymond Colt already knew Aiden's connection to the case.
"He knows you," I said.
"He knows you were the investigator."
"He found out eighteen months into my investigation.
That's when the case files went missing from my office." Aiden's jaw tightened.
"Physical copies.
Gone overnight.
Nothing else taken."
"And you didn't report it?"
"I reported it.
The police treated it as a routine break-in.
Nothing on camera.
No prints." He sat back down.
"Raymond is careful.
He has been for a very long time."
I looked at the flowers still spread across the table.
Fourteen of them.
Amelia had made dozens over those last two years of her life.
I had kept every single one.
"We need to open the rest of them," I said.
We worked in silence.
Aiden with the small scissors, me unfolding each piece of paper as it emerged.
Most were blank — scraps Amelia had used as stuffing.
But the third flower held another note, and the sixth held one more.
I read the third note first.
*"Mama.
The man in the picture came to our house once when you were at work.
He said he was Daddy's friend.
He asked me if Daddy had left any papers at home.
I said I didn't know.
He looked in Daddy's office.
I watched from the stairs.
He took something from the desk drawer and put it in his coat.
I drew his face after he left so I wouldn't forget.
I don't know his name but I think he was the reason."*
My hand went flat on the table.
"She drew his face," I said.
"She drew it and then she found the photograph somewhere and recognized him."
"Where would she have found the photograph?"
I thought.
Then I remembered.
"Harold kept a folder," I said slowly.
"Business contacts.
Photographs, cards, notes.
He kept it in the car.
He always said he did his best thinking on long drives." I looked up.
"The car wasn't destroyed in the accident.
It was impounded.
And then — I don't remember exactly — someone from Harold's office collected his personal effects.
They brought me a box.
Amelia was with me when I opened it."
Aiden was very still.
"She saw the folder."
"She must have.
She was twelve and she was sharp and she never forgot a face." My voice broke on the last word.
I pressed my hand to my mouth for a moment.
"She was protecting me.
Even then.
Even while she was sick."
I opened the sixth note.
Amelia's handwriting again, but shakier this time.
Toward the end, she had been losing strength in her hands.
*"Mama.
I hid everything I could find.
The picture is in the yellow flower.
The other thing is in the blue bunny at the back of the box.
Don't let anyone take the box.
I love you more than all the sweets in the world."*
I was already moving before I finished reading.
The box was on the shelf in the hallway.
I'd carried it from three different houses over ten years.
I lifted the blue bunny out with both hands.
It was heavier than it should have been.
Aiden appeared in the doorway behind me.
I turned the bunny over and found the seam along the base — longer than the others, and the stitching was different.
Tighter.
More deliberate.
Like she'd known this one needed to hold.
Inside, wrapped in a folded piece of wax paper, was a small USB drive.
May you like
And a note in Amelia's handwriting that said only:
*"Daddy's proof."*
