Chapter 8 - The Price of Being Useful
“Where did you get that?”
Leo lowered the phone.
“Your mother’s safe.”
Ruth stepped forward.
“Answer her.”
He looked at the investigator.
“I need a minute.”
“You have ten seconds,” Ruth said.
Leo was in his thirties, with a rumpled coat and the gray face of a man who hadn’t slept.
Nora recognized him from Ben’s office holiday pictures.
They had stood shoulder to shoulder.
Beer bottles raised.
Friends.
“Martin contacted me,” Leo said.
The investigator moved between him and the exit.
Leo flinched.
“I didn’t tell him about this place.”
Ruth’s face hardened.
“What did you tell him?”
“Your office.”
Silence spread through the little room.
Celia had escaped to an address Martin could find.
Or had been allowed to escape.
Ruth pulled out her phone immediately.
“Move Patricia. New vehicle. New destination. Don’t send it to me by text.”
Leo rubbed both hands over his mouth.
“They have my daughter’s school schedule.”
“So you gave them my mother?” Nora asked.
“I gave them Ruth’s address. I thought—”
“You thought they’d hurt someone you didn’t know.”
He looked at her.
There was no useful answer.
Adrian came down the hall.
He stopped when he saw Leo.
“What happened?”
Ruth told him.
For the first time all night, Nora saw real anger break through his control.
Leo backed against a filing cabinet.
“You promised us protection.”
“I told you to speak to the investigators.”
“I have. Twice. You think that puts someone outside my kid’s classroom?”
Ruth’s phone connected.
She identified herself, gave the threats and locations, and asked for an immediate response from the federal contact handling the foundation case.
Then she took Leo’s phone.
“Everything you received. Nothing deleted.”
Leo nodded.
His eyes returned to Nora.
“There’s something else.”
She almost laughed.
Of course there was.
“Elaine’s moving the originals tonight. The foundation’s transferring its remaining properties tomorrow. They’ll claim the old files were lost during consolidation.”
“The archive,” Nora said.
Leo’s face changed.
“You know?”
“Box H-17.”
He nodded.
“That book connects Elaine to every diverted payment. Ben copied pieces. He never got the complete thing.”
Adrian looked at Ruth.
“Tell your contact where we’re going.”
Ruth shook her head.
“You’re not going anywhere alone.”
Nora closed Ben’s box.
“We’re already past that.”
Leo caught her sleeve.
She pulled away.
“The lower archive has a separate entrance,” he said. “Use the loading ramp.”
Outside, Adrian’s car lights flashed.
His phone received a message.
A photograph of the archive corridor.
Martin stood beside a steel door.
May you like
Under it were four words.
Bring the dead boy’s sister.
