Chapter 4: What Claire Left Behind
The bookshelf had seven stuffed animals on it.
A bear with a missing eye.
Two rabbits — one of them Emma's spare.
A faded elephant.
A cloth dog with a bell inside.
A penguin with a zipper pocket along its back.
And a small gray cat that I had never seen before and could not remember buying.
Ramirez pulled on a glove and lifted the gray cat.
The zipper along its belly had been sewn shut with newer thread.
A different color.
Careful, but not careful enough.
She set it on Emma's desk without opening it.
"We'll process it properly," she said.
"But I want you to understand what we think is on that drive before we open it."
"Tell me."
"Victor Hale ran a financial operation out of three shell companies for approximately nine years.
The FBI has been building a case.
Claire wasn't the only person who found inconsistencies — but she was the only one who copied the records before they disappeared." Ramirez looked at the cat.
"We think she knew she was being watched.
We think she hid the copy and then tried to reach someone she trusted."
"Carol Deane," I said.
"Yes.
But Carol's connection to Hale made her unreachable.
Anything Claire sent her would have been intercepted." She paused.
"So Claire hid the drive here.
In this house.
With Emma."
My throat tightened.
"She hid it before the accident."
"Three days before."
I sat down on the edge of Emma's bed.
The same bed where my daughter had been sleeping for months with a piece of evidence sewn inside a toy cat, while a woman planted in my house searched every room trying to find it.
"Vanessa was looking for it," I said.
"The whole time."
"The cameras in the office.
The laundry room."
"She was watching you.
Watching Emma.
Waiting to see if either of you found it first." Ramirez picked up her notepad.
"The cameras in the other house — the other little girl — we identified her this afternoon.
Her name is Mia Garrett.
Her father is a former colleague of Claire's.
Hale's people approached him the same way they approached you.
A woman.
A false identity.
A slow infiltration."
"Did they find what they were looking for in his house?"
Ramirez's jaw tightened.
"Yes."
The word landed like a stone.
"Then why are they still—"
"Because what Mia's father had was incomplete," she said.
"The full record — the one that names Hale directly and traces the accounts — that's what Claire copied.
That's what's in this room."
I looked at the gray cat on the desk.
Nine years of financial crjme.
Two families targeted.
My wife d*ed three days after hiding the evidence.
"Was Claire's accident—" I couldn't finish it.
Ramirez didn't look away.
"That investigation has been reopened."
The room felt very small.
My phone buzzed.
A text from an unknown number — different from Carol's.
Four words.
May you like
*Give it back.
Tonight.*
