Chapter 8: The Warrant
I took the phone from Jared's hand and called Raymond back.
He answered on the first ring.
"Oscar.
Is she still there?"
"She just left."
"Good.
We executed the warrant on Curtis Vane's office forty minutes ago.
He was cooperative — more cooperative than we expected." A pause.
"He gave us Lauren's personal account numbers.
All four of them.
She had been moving money through Curtis's account and then splitting it across four separate accounts in her name, held at different institutions."
"How much total?"
"Across all three victims we've identified so far — just over nine hundred thousand dollars."
Jared was watching my face.
"Three victims," I said.
"You, and two others.
A retired schoolteacher in Milwaukee.
A widower in Indianapolis.
Both in their seventies.
Both with trust accounts managed by adult children who believed their parents were being cared for." Raymond's voice was steady, but I had known him long enough to hear what was underneath it.
"She had a system, Oscar.
She identified wealthy adult children with elderly parents.
She got close to the family.
She married into yours.
In the other cases, she posed as a financial care coordinator."
"She never married them."
"No.
You were the long play.
Jared's assets were significantly larger than the others."
I looked at the photograph on the wall.
Jared at graduation.
Twenty-two years old.
"Raymond," I said.
"The warrant — does it include her?"
"Her arrest warrant was issued this morning.
Cook County Sheriff's office is executing it now." A brief pause.
"Oscar, she may try to contact Jared before they reach her.
If she does—"
"I'll tell him."
"Good." He paused again.
"You did good work.
Forty years of instinct."
"Forty years," I said.
I handed the phone back to Jared.
He looked at the screen for a moment, then set it face-down on the table.
"Nine hundred thousand dollars," he said quietly.
"Across three families."
He pulled out the chair across from me and sat down.
He looked at his hands.
"I brought her here," he said.
"I set up the trust.
I told you not to worry about money.
I said Lauren handles everything." He looked up.
"I handed her the keys."
"You trusted your wife," I said.
"That is not a character flaw."
"I should have checked."
"You had no reason to check.
She was careful.
She was patient.
She built this over years." I leaned forward slightly.
"Jared.
Look at me."
He looked at me.
"You came on Father's Day," I said.
"You asked the question.
The moment something felt wrong, you came."
"I came because I wanted to see you.
Not because I suspected anything."
"It doesn't matter why you came.
You came." I paused.
"And when you saw the soup and the space heater and the peeling paint — you asked."
He was quiet for a long moment.
His phone buzzed again.
He looked at it.
"Unknown number," he said.
"Don't answer it," I said.
He set it back down.
We sat together in the apartment while the radiator clicked in the corner and the afternoon light moved slowly across the kitchen table.
After a while, Jared got up and poured the cold coffee down the sink.
He found the kettle and filled it.
He opened the cabinet above the stove and looked at what was there.
Two tins of soup.
A box of crackers.
Powdered milk.
He stood there with his hand on the cabinet door for a long moment.
Then he closed it quietly and came back to the table.
"I'm moving you out of here," he said.
"This week."
"Jared—"
"Not because you can't manage.
Because I want you somewhere decent." He met my eyes.
"Because you deserve somewhere decent.
And because I should have made sure of that three years ago."
I started to object.
Then I stopped.
"All right," I said.
His phone buzzed a third time.
May you like
This time he looked at the screen and went still.
"It's her," he said.
