Chapter 6: What Patricia Left Behind
Patricia's apartment was forty minutes from my house.
Reyes met me there the next morning.
The building super let us in with a pass key, and we stood in a living room that looked like someone had left in the middle of a Tuesday.
A coffee mug on the counter.
Half-full.
Cold now.
A notepad beside the phone with numbers on it, the top sheet torn away.
The impression of whatever had been written on it was still faintly visible in the paper beneath.
Reyes photographed everything without touching it.
I stood near the window and looked at the framed photos on the bookshelf.
Vanessa at various ages.
Patricia at various ages.
A few I didn't recognize — men in suits, groups at what looked like fundraisers or galas.
One photo stopped me.
Vanessa.
Younger, maybe mid-twenties.
Standing beside a man I didn't know, both of them smiling at the camera.
Behind them, partially visible, was a banner.
I could only read part of it.
*—HOLT FINANCIAL PARTNERS—*
"Detective."
Reyes came to stand beside me.
"That banner," I said.
She leaned in.
Then she took out her phone and photographed the picture without removing it from the shelf.
"Holt Financial Partners was the predecessor company," she said.
"Before the disbarment.
It dissolved when he lost his license." She looked at the photo again.
"Your wife knew him when she was in her twenties."
"She told me she met him just after the wedding."
"She lied."
I already knew that.
But hearing it said plainly in that empty apartment, surrounded by the evidence of a life that had been constructed around a lie, made it land differently.
We found the notepad impression in the lab later that afternoon.
The forensic tech used a pencil and light angle to bring up the writing.
Two lines.
A phone number.
And below it: *Tell R the recorder is a problem.*
The timestamp on the impression — based on the ink oxidation and the paper compression — was consistent with sometime in the last seventy-two hours.
Patricia had known about the recorder before she ran.
Which meant Vanessa had told her.
Which meant they had spoken after I confronted Vanessa.
After Detective Reyes had walked her out of my house.
"She made a call," I said.
"From the holding cell," Reyes said.
"She's entitled to one call.
She called her mother."
"And her mother ran."
"And called Raymond Holt first, based on that number." Reyes set the lab report down.
"We've already contacted his last known address.
He's also gone."
I looked at her.
"Both of them," I said.
"Both of them.
Within twelve hours of Vanessa's arrest." Reyes folded her hands on the table.
"That level of coordination doesn't happen without a plan in place.
They had an exit strategy ready."
"Which means they always knew this might fall apart."
"Which means," she said carefully, "that there may be other cases we don't know about yet.
Other families.
Other targets.
We're pulling Holt's full client history from before the disbarment."
I drove home in silence.
Caleb and Emma were at my sister's house.
I had taken them there the night before, after Reyes called about Patricia.
My sister, Carol, had opened the door at eleven at night without a single question, taken one look at my face, and pulled both children inside.
I sat in my driveway for a while before going in.
The house felt different without them in it.
Quieter in a way that wasn't peaceful.
I went to Caleb's room and sat on the edge of his bed.
His desk was neat.
His books were stacked.
On the corner of the desk was the small empty space where the recorder had been.
He had kept it there for eight months.
Every morning he had woken up and seen it and known what was on it and said nothing.
My phone rang.
Dan.
"The trust accounts," he said.
"We've been through all of them.
Vanessa moved sixty-three thousand dollars across seven transactions over fourteen months.
She was careful — small amounts, irregular intervals, nothing that would trigger an automatic flag."
"Can it be recovered?"
"Most of it.
The accounts she moved it to are frozen now.
But there's a problem."
I waited.
"Two of the transactions were routed through the holding company before they landed.
Raymond Holt's company.
If he's gone and the company is dissolved, recovering those two amounts gets significantly more complicated."
"How much?"
"Nineteen thousand."
I closed my eyes.
"Okay."
"It's not gone forever.
It just takes longer.
Civil recovery, potentially international if he's left the country." Dan paused.
"I know that's not what you wanted to hear."
"No," I said.
"But it's not the part that matters most."
He was quiet for a moment.
"How are the kids?"
"With my sister.
They're okay."
"And you?"
I looked at Caleb's empty desk.
"I keep thinking about how long he carried that recorder," I said.
"Eight months.
He was seven when he started."
Dan didn't say anything.
Sometimes there's nothing useful to say.
"I'll call you tomorrow," I said.
I hung up and sat in the quiet room for a long time.
Then my phone buzzed with a message from Reyes.
May you like
*We found Raymond Holt.
He didn't get far.*
