Chapter 7 - The Photograph From Across the Street
Brooks moved me before sunrise.
No ambulance.
No marked police car.
I left through a service corridor wearing a nurse's jacket over my pajamas.
The photograph had changed everything.
Victor was locked up.
Raymond Pike had vanished.
Marcus was under surveillance.
Yet someone had stood across from my hospital room and photographed me.
We moved to a protected apartment.
For two days, nothing happened.
Then Rosa called.
“Someone broke into the house.”
My blood ran cold.
“What did they take?”
“Nothing.”
That meant they had been searching.
“For what?”
Rosa whispered.
“Your mother's sewing room.”
I knew immediately.
The original flash drive.
Except it wasn't there.
I had hidden it somewhere Victor would never have considered.
Inside the hollow base of my father's old chess clock.
Brooks retrieved it.
When technicians examined the drive more deeply, they discovered deleted files.
One contained a spreadsheet.
Three initials appeared repeatedly.
VH.
MB.
And RC.
Victor Hale.
Marcus Bell.
RC was unknown.
Then one transaction revealed a full name.
Richard Caldwell.
I knew it instantly.
Senator Richard Caldwell had been my father's college roommate.
He had spoken at the funeral.
He had called my parents “family.”
And his private investment company had received nearly six million dollars through one of Victor's shell corporations.
This was no longer simply murder for inheritance.
It was fraud stretching across companies, contracts, and political connections.
Brooks warned me not to jump to conclusions about Caldwell's knowledge; a transaction alone did not prove he knew its source.
Then investigators found something more concrete.
A voicemail from Caldwell's private number.
Victor had saved it.
“Jonathan cannot go public. Fix this before Monday.”
The date?
Three days before my parents died.
I stared at Brooks.
“What does ‘fix this’ mean?”
“We need evidence.”
I hated that answer.
But she was right.
Suspicion wasn't proof.
We needed the person who could connect them.
Raymond Pike.
And nobody knew where he was.
Until my phone rang.
Unknown number.
I answered.
Silence.
Then a man whispered:
“Claire Mercer?”
“Yes.”
“My name is Raymond Pike.”
My heart stopped.
“I know who killed your parents.”
I gripped the phone.
“You?”
“No.”
His next words changed the entire case.
May you like
“I was supposed to.”
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