Chapter 4 - The Officer at the Door
Rachel raised the cast-iron pan.
Officer Ortiz switched on a flashlight.
“Easy.”
A second officer stood behind her.
He wore plain clothes and kept one hand near the weapon beneath his jacket.
“You entered without permission,” Rachel said.
“The building manager gave us access.”
“At two in the morning?”
“We received information that someone was coming here to harm Claire.”
“From whom?”
Ortiz did not answer.
My phone remained in my hand.
The message from Maya’s number glowed across the screen.
DON’T TRUST ORTIZ.
SHE WORKS FOR LAWSON.
Ortiz noticed my expression.
“What happened?”
“Nothing.”
“That isn’t true.”
The plainclothes officer moved toward me.
Rachel blocked his path.
“Identify yourself.”
“Detective Aaron Pike.”
“Badge.”
He displayed it.
Rachel examined the number.
“Why did the electricity fail?”
Pike glanced toward the hallway.
“We didn’t cut it.”
A soft sound came from the balcony.
The glass door slid open.
A masked man stepped inside.
He held a suppressed pistol.
Ortiz saw him first.
“Down!”
The shot struck the wall above my head.
Rachel dropped behind the kitchen island.
Pike returned fire.
The masked man retreated onto the balcony.
Ortiz chased him.
By the time she reached the railing, he was climbing down the emergency ladder toward the floor below.
Pike called for backup.
The building filled with alarms.
Ortiz returned and stared at the laptop.
“Now do you understand why I came?”
“Who told you?”
“A woman called the station and said an armed man was being sent to this address.”
“Maya?”
“The caller disguised her voice.”
I showed Ortiz the message.
She read it twice.
“I don’t work for Lawson.”
“He is your commander.”
“He is also the reason I brought Detective Pike instead of notifying my department.”
Pike closed the balcony door.
Ortiz lowered her voice.
“Three years ago, I investigated the disappearance of an employee from a Caldwell-owned rehabilitation center.”
“Marisol Vega,” I said.
Ortiz looked at me sharply.
“Her name is on the drive.”
Ortiz’s suspicion changed into something else.
Recognition.
“Marisol was a nurse,” she said. “She reported that wealthy patients were being admitted under false psychiatric holds. Before she could testify, she vanished.”
“Was she found?”
“Her car was recovered near the Mexican border. The department decided she had fled the country.”
“But you didn’t believe that.”
“No.”
“Lawson closed the case?”
“He ordered me to stop investigating.”
Ortiz looked toward Pike.
“Six months later, I discovered Lawson had received payments from a Caldwell consulting company.”
Rachel opened the ledger and showed them the entry.
Henry Lawson had received $180,000 over four years.
Pike photographed the screen.
Ortiz did not appear surprised.
She appeared vindicated.
“We need federal investigators,” she said.
“Federal agencies can be influenced too,” Rachel replied.
“Then we create enough copies that influence becomes useless.”
For the next two hours, we worked without connecting any device to the internet.
Rachel created encrypted duplicates.
Pike placed one inside an evidence package that he signed across the seal.
Ortiz took another.
Rachel stored a third inside a safe-deposit envelope.
I kept the original.
At dawn, Ortiz called a federal prosecutor she trusted in Sacramento.
Assistant United States Attorney Daniel Cho agreed to meet us in person.
We chose a courthouse conference room with no Caldwell connections.
Before leaving, I tried calling Maya.
Her phone was off.
Julian had reported her missing.
According to his statement, she had suffered a psychological crisis after stealing confidential business files.
He claimed she might be suicidal.
The family had already begun constructing the same story they had used against Rebecca.
Unstable.
Delusional.
Dangerous to herself.
Rachel searched Maya’s recent financial records with my authorization as her former accountant.
There had been no hotel purchases.
No airline tickets.
No cash withdrawals.
But her health insurance had been billed at 11:58 p.m.
The claim came from Bellweather Recovery Center.
Bellweather was owned through three shell companies.
The final owner was the Caldwell Family Health Foundation.
Maya had been admitted for emergency psychiatric treatment forty minutes after disappearing from the estate.
The admitting physician was Dr. Simon Vale.
His name appeared in five folders on the flash drive.
“We found her,” I said.
Ortiz called Bellweather.
The receptionist denied that Maya was a patient.
Pike called again and identified himself as a detective.
The receptionist still denied it.
Then Daniel Cho called from Sacramento.
He had reviewed three sample files.
He wanted the entire drive immediately.
He also delivered a warning.
Someone had entered a federal database using District Attorney Shaw’s credentials.
They had searched my name, Rachel’s name, Ortiz’s name, and Pike’s name.
The search had occurred six minutes after the copies were made.
“They know we’re together,” Ortiz said.
Rachel looked at the offline laptop.
“That should be impossible.”
I thought about the security photographs inside my folder.
The recordings made in my bedroom.
The precise timing of the intruder.
“They aren’t tracking the drive,” I said.
“They’re tracking me.”
Ortiz searched my coat and handbag.
Nothing.
Pike inspected my phone.
No obvious spyware appeared.
Rachel checked the bandage near my temple.
Her fingers stopped.
Something hard was hidden beneath the medical tape.
She carefully peeled it back.
Beside the stitches was a tiny black transmitter.
May you like
Someone at the hospital had placed a tracking device against my wound.
And according to the blinking light, it was still broadcasting.
