Chapter 4: The Room He Needed
I reached the bedroom seconds behind Reeves.
Smoke curled from Marcus’s old desk.
Raymond stood over an open drawer, pressing a silver lighter against a bundle of papers.
“Put it down,” Reeves ordered.
Raymond dropped the lighter, but the corner of the top page was already black.
“I smelled smoke,” he said.
“I was trying to help.”
“With a lighter?” Victoria demanded from the doorway.
Raymond kicked the drawer shut.
“Stay out of this.”
She stepped into the room.
“This is my sister’s home.
You brought me into it.”
I pulled the drawer open.
Beneath the burned papers sat a small encrypted drive stamped with Marcus’s initials.
“MCB,” I whispered.
Raymond reached past me.
I closed my hand around the drive.
“Don’t.”
“That belongs to me.”
“Then tell me what’s on it.”
His face changed for half a second.
Reeves held out an evidence pouch.
“Colonel, place it inside.”
I sealed the drive in the pouch.
Raymond watched every movement.
Ward examined the scorched papers.
“These appear to be property documents.”
“They prove the transfer,” Raymond said.
“This house is under my management.”
I lifted the top sheet.
Marcus’s signature sat above a notary seal.
“That isn’t his signature.”
Harrison pushed into the room.
“It looks like the one on his Christmas cards.”
“Marcus injured his right hand six years ago,” I said.
“After that, he signed legal documents with his left.
The slant changed.”
Raymond shrugged.
“Prove it.”
“I can.”
His eyes sharpened.
Eleanor picked up another page.
“Harrison, your name is here.”
My father took it from her.
“This says we approved the transfer.”
“Did you?” I asked.
He avoided my eyes.
“Raymond said it was estate planning.”
“You signed away a house you didn’t own?”
“He said Marcus wanted the family protected.”
I looked at Raymond.
“Marcus protected this family by letting you live here without rent.”
“And you disappeared for months at a time,” Raymond shot back.
“Someone had to manage things.”
“You collected money from my parents?”
Eleanor sat on the bed.
“We gave him two thousand dollars every month.”
“For maintenance,” Raymond said.
“The mortgage has been paid off for three years,” I replied.
Victoria turned on him.
“You told me the money covered the loan.”
“It covered expenses.”
“Show me the accounts.”
“This isn’t the time.”
“It became the time when you tried to burn the records.”
Raymond moved close to her.
“Think carefully before you choose your unstable sister over your husband.”
My hand went to Victoria’s arm.
“Step away from her.”
He smiled at me.
“There she is—the decorated colonel hiding behind a grieving widow.”
“And there you are,” I said.
“A frightened man standing beside a smoking desk.”
Reeves’s phone sounded.
He answered, listened, then looked at the sealed drive.
“The preliminary network trace is back.
The protected files were accessed from a device registered to Raymond Cole Financial.”
Raymond crossed his arms.
“My company has forty employees.”
“The device is your personal laptop.”
“That laptop was stolen.”
Victoria stared at him.
“It’s in your car.”
“No, it isn’t.”
“You used it at dinner last night.”
Raymond pushed past her and hurried downstairs.
The younger soldier followed.
A moment later, the front door opened and Raymond shouted from the driveway.
“My car has been searched!”
Ward came to the landing.
“No one searched your vehicle.”
We gathered at the front door.
The Audi stood where he had left it, but the rear passenger window was shattered.
Raymond ran to the open door and looked inside.
“The laptop is gone,” he said.
Reeves crouched beside the broken glass.
“There’s glass on the seat, but none on the driveway.”
“What does that mean?” Victoria asked.
“The window was broken somewhere else,” I said, “before Raymond came home.”
Raymond’s hand went into his coat pocket.
A folded baggage receipt slipped out and landed near my boot.
I picked it up.
The receipt was for a locker at Union Station, rented at 2:11 that morning.
Reeves read the number over my shoulder.
Raymond turned toward the street.
“Don’t move,” I said.
He looked back at me and smiled.
May you like
“You’re already too late.
The locker was emptied an hour ago.”
