Chapter 4 - What Was on the Flash Drive
We did not plug the flash drive into our laptop.
Bruce insisted we wait for Jim’s attorney.
For once, nobody argued.
By morning, attorney Rebecca Sloan arrived.
She was calm, precise, and unimpressed by Jim’s excuses.
“You stole from your sister?”
“Yes.”
“Gambled?”
“Yes.”
“Borrowed from illegal lenders?”
“Yes.”
“Copied confidential company records?”
“Yes.”
Rebecca stared at him.
“You’ve had a productive month.”
Even I almost smiled.
She contacted investigators.
The flash drive was surrendered properly.
What followed changed the direction of everything.
The records appeared to show payments routed through contractors that either didn’t exist or had suspicious ownership structures.
Mercer Development was suddenly under scrutiny.
But investigators warned us not to assume Daniel Mercer personally controlled every transaction.
That mattered.
Evidence first.
Conclusions later.
Jim agreed.
For the next several days, our vacation became something entirely different.
Interviews.
Phone calls.
Security discussions.
And difficult conversations.
I asked Bruce exactly how much money he had taken from retirement.
He told me.
I nearly dropped my coffee.
“You paid all that?”
“I could rebuild savings.”
“You could have told me.”
“I should have.”
That became the sentence he repeated most.
Not an excuse.
Not a defense.
Just acknowledgment.
One evening, Lily sat between us building a castle from hotel coasters.
“Are we still a family?” she asked.
The question shattered me.
Bruce answered before I could.
“Yes.”
Jim looked away.
Lily pointed at him.
“Uncle Jim too?”
I watched my brother.
Family wasn’t the same thing as pretending nothing happened.
“Yes,” I said. “But families have to fix things when they hurt each other.”
Jim nodded.
“I’m fixing mine.”
The next morning, Rebecca called.
Investigators had found something connected to the pawn broker.
He had disappeared.
Not vanished mysteriously.
He had simply closed his operation and left town.
But before leaving, he had made a bank deposit.
The amount matched what Bruce paid.
Hours later, most of that money was transferred elsewhere.
To a company connected indirectly to one of Mercer Development’s vendors.
Jim looked sick.
“So they knew.”
“Possibly,” Rebecca said. “Don’t jump ahead.”
Then she revealed something worse.
Investigators found records suggesting Jim’s gambling debt had been purchased by someone shortly before the move.
“Purchased?”
Bruce frowned.
Rebecca nodded.
“Someone may have deliberately acquired leverage over Jim.”
I looked at my brother.
“Why?”
His face drained.
“The files.”
If someone knew Jim had discovered the questionable transfers, his gambling problem offered the perfect weapon.
Discredit him.
Control him.
Maybe scare him into silence.
But there was still one problem.
Why involve my heirloom chest?
Then Jim remembered something.
“The locket.”
“What about it?”
He stared at me.
“Mom’s gold locket had a photograph inside.”
“Yes.”
“Who was in it?”
“Mom and Dad.”
Jim shook his head.
“No. Claire, you changed the picture years ago.”
I froze.
He was right.
After Mom died, I had placed a tiny photograph of Mom with another person inside.
A man we knew from childhood.
A man who had worked with our father.
Jim whispered his name.
Bruce slowly turned toward me.
I opened the jewelry chest.
The locket was there.
I pressed the clasp.
It opened.
The photograph was gone.
In its place was a tiny folded piece of paper.
I unfolded it.
An address.
And beneath the address, two words:
ASK HAROLD.
I knew exactly who Harold was.
He had been my father’s closest friend.
And according to everything Jim and I had been told—
May you like
Harold had been dead for fourteen years.
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