Chapter 6 - The Map With My Name
Rosa was in Albuquerque.
She had driven there after Grant paid her ten thousand dollars to resign and threatened to accuse her of theft if she ever contacted me.
She had kept the money.
Smart woman.
It created evidence.
Federal agents brought her back to Colorado that afternoon.
By then, the warrant search at my house had begun.
Grant was furious.
Vanessa had disappeared.
That did not surprise anyone.
What surprised us was how quickly Grant began blaming her.
According to the agents on scene, he described Vanessa as manipulative.
Dangerous.
Obsessed.
He claimed she had forced her way into his life.
Apparently, his fiancée had transformed into a stalker the moment federal agents opened his office safe.
Grant had always been adaptable.
That was one of the things I once admired about him.
Now I understood adaptability was simply a flattering word for a man with no fixed loyalty.
Rosa sat across from Marcus and me in an interview room.
She looked exhausted.
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Carlisle.”
“Evelyn.”
Her eyes filled.
“I should have taken Lily.”
“You would have been arrested for kidnapping.”
“I could have called police.”
“Vanessa told you I had abandoned Lily?”
She nodded.
“And Mr. Grant said you were dangerous.”
“Did you believe him?”
“No.”
Her answer came immediately.
“Why?”
“Because Lily never feared you.”
Rosa looked at me.
“She waited at the front window every day.”
My chest tightened.
“She would ask whether today was the day Mommy came home.”
I looked down.
Rosa continued.
“Vanessa hated that.”
“What did she do?”
“She removed your pictures.”
I looked up.
“All of them?”
“Almost.”
“She told Lily you left because you didn’t want to be a mother anymore.”
My hands closed into fists beneath the table.
Rosa saw.
“She wanted Lily to call her Mom.”
I said nothing.
“Lily refused.”
Of course she did.
“So Vanessa punished her.”
Marcus leaned forward.
“Tell us about Grant’s office.”
Rosa nodded.
“One afternoon Mr. Grant told me not to clean it anymore.”
“When?”
“Maybe five weeks ago.”
“Did you know why?”
“No.”
“But you went inside.”
“Only because Lily’s bracelet rolled under the door.”
Rosa explained that she entered to retrieve it.
A folder was open on Grant’s desk.
Inside were photographs.
Trucks.
License plates.
Warehouses.
Then one photograph of me walking beside a gas station somewhere in North Dakota.
I remembered the day immediately.
It had been twelve degrees.
I wore an oversized coat and baseball cap as part of my cover.
The picture had been taken from across the road.
Someone had been watching me.
“Was there writing?” Marcus asked.
“Yes.”
“What?”
“Numbers. Dates.”
“Anything else?”
“A map.”
“Describe it.”
“North Dakota. Canada.”
Her fingers trembled.
“There was a red circle.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know the town.”
Marcus slid a blank regional map across the table.
Rosa studied it.
Then pointed.
“Near here.”
Pembina.
Exactly where our operation had been based.
I felt sick.
“What was written near the circle?” Marcus asked.
Rosa looked at me.
“E.C.”
My initials.
“And another word.”
“What word?”
“Thursday.”
Thursday.
The night our surveillance team was nearly ambushed.
A delivery route changed unexpectedly.
Three armed men arrived at a warehouse that should have been empty.
We escaped because one of our agents noticed a vehicle circling twice and called an early withdrawal.
Had we stayed another four minutes, the outcome might have been very different.
I understood now.
Grant had not merely hoped I would disappear.
Someone had tried to make it happen.
“What did you do after seeing the folder?” Marcus asked.
“I took pictures.”
My head snapped toward her.
“With your phone?”
“Yes.”
“Do you still have them?”
She nodded.
Marcus nearly smiled.
Rosa handed over her phone.
The photographs were still stored in a hidden cloud folder.
There it was.
My picture.
The map.
Payment schedules.
A list of company names.
And handwritten notes in Grant’s distinctive block lettering.
Marcus enlarged one.
BF - route confirmed.
VN - payment after completion.
EC - Thurs.
I stared at those initials.
“VN?”
“Vale Northstar,” Marcus said.
“Probably.”
Another image showed a printed email.
Most of the page was blurry.
But one sentence was readable.
Our mutual problem will resolve itself before the quarter closes.
I leaned back.
“Our mutual problem.”
Marcus looked grim.
“That’s how it reads.”
Grant had called me a problem.
A financial obstacle.
A logistical issue.
Something to resolve.
I thought of our wedding.
Grant crying when I walked down the aisle.
Lily’s birth.
Christmas mornings.
The night my father died and Grant sat on the kitchen floor with me until sunrise.
Which parts were real?
That question nearly destroyed me.
Then I realized it didn’t matter.
A good memory does not cancel a later crime.
Love does not remain sacred simply because it once existed.
Marcus received a message.
His expression sharpened.
“They found your laptop.”
“Anything?”
“External device logs.”
My stomach tightened.
“Meaning?”
“Someone copied data approximately three months ago.”
The afternoon Grant mistakenly took it.
I closed my eyes.
“Can you prove what?”
“Digital forensics will.”
Another message arrived.
Marcus read it.
Then looked at me.
“What?”
“They also found four burner phones.”
“Where?”
“Behind a false panel in Grant’s office.”
My pulse increased.
“Any connected to Victor?”
“We’ll see.”
His phone rang.
He answered.
Listened.
Then his face hardened completely.
“Understood.”
He disconnected.
“What happened?”
“Grant left the residence during the search.”
“He was allowed?”
“He wasn’t detained.”
“Where did he go?”
“We don’t know yet.”
A terrible thought struck me.
“Where is Lily?”
“With Dr. Reynolds and two protective-service officers.”
I immediately called.
No answer.
I called again.
Still nothing.
Marcus was already moving.
Then my phone rang.
Dr. Reynolds.
I answered.
“Where is Lily?”
A pause.
Then a frightened voice.
“Evelyn, someone tried to take her.”
Every sound in the room vanished.
“Who?”
“A man claiming to be her father’s attorney.”
“Is she safe?”
“Yes.”
I closed my eyes.
“She’s safe.”
“For now.”
Marcus grabbed his coat.
I asked the question I already knew the answer to.
“Where is Grant?”
Dr. Reynolds hesitated.
May you like
Then said:
“We saw his car leaving the parking garage.”
