Chapter 5 - The Accounts Nobody Wanted Opened
We left the estate that afternoon.
I didn’t want to.
That frightened me almost as much as wanting to stay.
For eight days, I had known the shape of those rooms, the sound of Mrs. Pace’s footsteps, the smell of wood shavings on Nico’s sleeves.
Now I had to put Junie in another car with people carrying government credentials and believe the destination would remain secret.
Morales did not rush me.
She explained who was responsible for our immediate safety, how decisions would be communicated, and what information would be restricted.
She introduced me to a deputy marshal named Sarah Bell.
Bell spoke directly to Junie.
“Your mom makes the decisions about you. I help keep those decisions safe.”
My daughter considered that.
“Do you have a gun?”
“Yes.”
“Do you like whales?”
“Very much.”
It was apparently enough for a beginning.
Before we left, Nico handed Junie a small cloth bag.
Inside was Button.
His seam had been repaired again.
Both eyes were now plain stitched circles.
“No buttons to come loose,” Nico explained.
Junie squeezed him.
“Can he talk?”
“Only if you do the voice.”
She seemed relieved.
At the new location, my attorney arrived before dinner.
Her name was Rebecca Sloan.
She had silver hair, sensible shoes, and a way of asking questions that made it clear she expected complete answers without punishing me for having them.
I told her everything again.
This time, I included things I had been ashamed to say.
That I had accepted the transmitter.
That I had searched for Nico’s study.
That I had started trusting him.
Rebecca took notes.
“Trusting someone who behaves kindly toward your child doesn’t make you foolish,” she said.
“Even if he’s a criminal?”
“It means you’re human. We can still examine the rest honestly.”
The following morning, Morales asked about something Whittaker had said through the toy.
The archive.
“What archive was he referring to?”
I shook my head.
“I don’t know.”
But the word stayed with me.
At Doyle Maritime, I had maintained routine monthly reconciliation files.
The working records were on company systems.
The year-end audit package had also gone to an outside accounting firm under our retention agreement.
Nothing secret.
Nothing clever.
Just the dull machinery of a business trying to satisfy banks and insurers.
I had told Whittaker that months earlier.
He said the materials had been collected.
He said there was nothing useful beyond the records already in the case.
“What?” Rebecca asked.
I realized I had stopped answering Morales.
“The outside accountant.”
We spent the afternoon reconstructing dates.
The accounting firm had changed names after a merger.
A storage request had been rejected because the company seeking it used an outdated client authorization.
The files had not been destroyed.
They had not been properly reviewed either.
Whittaker had reported that they were unavailable.
A week later, with the appropriate process and the firm’s cooperation, investigators obtained preserved copies.
Rebecca called me before the review.
“You are not being asked to solve the case,” she said.
“I know.”
“You are being asked to explain records you worked with.”
“I know.”
But when I entered the conference room and saw the familiar ledger format on the screen, something inside me settled.
For months, I had been a frightened witness.
A mother carrying a child from one borrowed bed to another.
Here, finally, was something I understood.
I knew why a transaction had been coded incorrectly.
I knew which entries were ordinary and which merely looked ordinary to someone who hadn’t lived inside those accounts.
Two hours into the review, I found the first repeated discrepancy.
Small amounts.
Adjustments that disappeared when totals were rounded.
“Go back,” I said.
The analyst returned to the previous page.
I pointed.
“That fee isn’t a fee.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I called the bank about it. The bank didn’t charge it.”
The analyst began marking entries.
By evening, a pattern had formed.
Payments had moved through freight-related vendors into consulting entities.
Some connected to Whittaker.
Others connected to a man whose name appeared on hospital wings, scholarship funds, and political fundraising invitations.
Adrian Vale.
I stared at the screen.
He had attended Marcus Hale’s memorial service.
I remembered because he had stood beside the inspector’s widow and promised justice.
Morales looked at the records for a long time.
Then she asked everyone to take a break.
I remained in my chair.
“What happens now?”
She met my eyes.
“Now we stop assuming Doyle was the most powerful person in the room.”
That evening, I opened Junie’s cloth bag to check Button’s new seam.
Tucked beside him was a folded sheet of paper.
Nico’s handwriting filled one line.
You do not owe me silence about anything you find.
May you like
I read it twice.
Then I gave it to Rebecca.
