I pushed Emmett toward June’s room.
“Get your sister.”
He saw my face and moved without arguing.
The front door opened another inch.
I grabbed the heavy iron skillet from beside the stove.
Detective Ortiz shouted through the phone.
“Do not approach him.”
The door swung wider.
A man stepped inside.
Late fifties.
Gray coat.
Thin face.
He froze when he saw me.
I raised the skillet.
“Don’t move.”
He lifted both hands.
“Celia?”
“Who are you?”
“My name is Martin Shaw.”
“I don’t know you.”
“No.”
He looked toward the hallway.
“Are the children here?”
That question made me step forward.
“Get out.”
“I’m not here to hurt you.”
“You entered my apartment with a key.”
“I was told the apartment would be empty.”
“By who?”
His eyes moved toward my phone.
Ortiz was still listening.
“Put the key on the floor,” I said.
He did.
Then police boots thundered up the stairs.
Officers pushed Martin against the wall before he could move.
Ortiz arrived ten minutes later.
She looked furious.
Not at me.
At the key.
“That lock was changed after Vaughn was arrested.”
“Yes.”
“Who had copies?”
“Me. Mrs. Weaver. The property manager.”
“And police.”
My eyes moved toward her.
She nodded.
“Emergency copy.”
Martin sat handcuffed in the hallway.
He kept saying he wanted to explain.
Ortiz ignored him until officers confirmed he carried no weapon.
Then she asked, “Where did you get the key?”
Martin stared at the floor.
“Someone left it for me.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know.”
“Try again.”
He shook his head.
“I really don’t.”
“How did they contact you?”
“Email.”
“For what purpose?”
“To retrieve something from this apartment.”
“What?”
“A blue notebook.”
My stomach tightened.
I had never seen a blue notebook.
“What was in it?”
Martin looked at me.
“I don’t know.”
Ortiz’s patience thinned.
“You entered a protected witness’s apartment using a restricted key.”
Martin went pale.
“I didn’t know she was protected.”
“Then who told you it would be empty?”
“I received instructions.”
“From whom?”
“I told you, I don’t know.”
Ortiz ordered his phone searched.
The messages came from a secure account.
Payment had been promised in cryptocurrency.
Martin was a locksmith.
Retired.
But not entirely.
He occasionally performed illegal lock work for people who paid enough.
“Who hired you before?” Ortiz asked.
He looked down.
“Harold Finch.”
That explained how he knew my address.
Not the key.
The key had been copied less than forty-eight hours earlier.
After Harold’s arrest.
Which meant someone with current access had provided it.
Ortiz’s face became unreadable.
“Who handled the emergency copies?”
She called dispatch.
Then the property manager.
Then her own department.
Four copies existed.
Mine.
Mrs. Weaver’s.
The property manager’s.
And one sealed in the police evidence office.
The property manager still had his.
Mrs. Weaver produced hers.
Mine sat on the counter.
That left one.
Police evidence.
Ortiz stopped speaking.
Then she called her captain.
Within an hour, Internal Affairs arrived.
The investigation had become contaminated.
The police key had been checked out at 11:42 that morning.
The signature belonged to Detective Samuel Keene.
I knew the name.
He had accompanied Ortiz to the storage unit.
He had been present when they searched Vaughn’s business.
He had stood in our apartment and reassured June.
Ortiz said nothing when she learned his name.
That frightened me more than anger.
“Do you trust him?” I asked.
“I did.”
“Where is he?”
“Nobody knows.”
His department vehicle had been found near a train station.
His phone was inside.
His badge was not.
Neither was his service weapon.
Martin Shaw was taken away.
Police moved us out of the apartment that afternoon.
Not because they believed the location was exposed.
Because they knew it was.
A safe house had been arranged in a small residential neighborhood forty minutes from our old building.
June called it ugly.
I loved her for that.
Ugly was normal.
The house had brown carpet, beige walls, and a refrigerator that made a clicking sound every few minutes.
Two officers stayed outside.
I tried to make pasta.
June refused to eat.
Emmett watched the windows.
“This isn’t forever,” I told them.
June looked around.
“Can I bring my purple shoes tomorrow?”
I had forgotten them.
The guilt was immediate and irrational.
“We’ll get them.”
“Promise?”
“Yes.”
She studied me.
“You promise promise?”
“Yes.”
Only then did she eat.
After dinner, Ortiz arrived.
She looked exhausted.
“We found Keene.”
I stood.
“Where?”
“His house.”
“Is he alive?”
“Yes.”
“Did he give Martin the key?”
“He says no.”
“What does the log show?”
“His credentials.”
“So he’s lying.”
“Maybe.”
I hated the word.
“Maybe?”
Ortiz rubbed her eyes.
“Keene says someone duplicated his access card.”
“Can that happen?”
“Yes.”
“Did it?”
“We’re investigating.”
Denise arrived moments later.
She had learned more about the warehouse files.
Three of the five women marked red had confirmed connections to Harold Finch.
Rachel Mercer had been Vaughn’s wife.
Angela Pike had been a legal assistant at Finch Legal.
Mara Jensen had been a client.
Danielle Rios had worked for a company Harold represented.
Stephanie Moss had no obvious connection.
Yet.
Angela Pike’s overdose had occurred nine years earlier.
She had supposedly mixed pain medication with alcohol.
Her insurance beneficiary had been her fiancé.
Martin Shaw.
The locksmith who had just entered my apartment.
I felt the room tilt.
“He was engaged to one of the women?”
“Yes.”
“Did he collect insurance?”
“Two hundred thousand.”
Ortiz immediately called the officers transporting Martin.
They turned around.
When questioned again, Martin stopped pretending he knew nothing.
Angela had worked at Finch Legal.
She discovered payments connected to Rachel’s case.
She told Martin someone at the firm was laundering money through shell companies.
Then she died.
Martin believed she had overdosed.
Harold convinced him not to demand an autopsy.
“He helped with funeral expenses,” Martin told Ortiz later.
“Of course he did,” I said.
Then years afterward Harold contacted him again.
Small favors.
Locks.
Keys.
Private access.
Harold paid generously.
Martin never connected the jobs to Angela.
Or claimed he never had.
“How do we know he’s telling the truth?” Denise asked.
“We don’t.”
Martin did give police something useful.
The blue notebook.
He knew what Harold wanted because he had been hired to steal it once before.
“From where?”
“Rachel Mercer’s brother.”
Daniel.
The notebook had belonged to Rachel.
Daniel believed it contained notes she made before her death.
Harold had searched for it for years.
Daniel had hidden it.
“How would it be in my apartment?”
Martin said he received an email that morning claiming Daniel had delivered it to me before being attacked.
He had not.
At least, I did not think he had.
Then I remembered the brown folder.
Daniel had fallen outside my door.
His belongings had scattered.
Police gathered them.
I had carried one item inside myself.
A blue leather book.
I thought it was an address book.
I had placed it in the kitchen drawer.
I called Ortiz.
“It’s there.”
My apartment became another crime scene.
Police recovered the notebook.
Ortiz photographed every page before moving it.
That night, she brought copies to the safe house.
Rachel had written dates.
Names.
License plates.
Accounts.
She had suspected Vaughn was stealing money.
But most of the entries were about Harold.
One sentence appeared repeatedly.
H says V isn’t the first.
H says people become easier after the paperwork starts.
“What does that mean?” I asked.
Denise read farther.
Another entry.
A.P. knows.
Angela Pike.
Another.
A.P. copied Meridian ledger.
Meridian Family Holdings.
The company that had sent money to Vaughn.
Rachel knew about Meridian eleven years ago.
Denise looked up.
“This isn’t Vaughn’s company.”
“It’s Harold’s.”
“Or something bigger.”
The next pages contained initials.
H.F.
V.E.
A.B.
S.K.
My skin prickled.
Adrian Bell.
Samuel Keene.
The detective whose key had opened my apartment.
“This notebook is eleven years old.”
Ortiz stared at the initials.
“Keene has been with the department twelve.”
“Was he involved back then?”
She did not answer.
A final entry was dated three days before Rachel’s death.
V says Belize ends everything.
H says S.K. will handle local questions.
Ortiz closed the copy.
For several seconds nobody spoke.
The implication was clear.
Samuel Keene might not have been compromised this week.
He might have been involved from the beginning.
Ortiz left immediately.
Police detained Keene before midnight.
His attorney arrived before questioning began.
The safe house suddenly felt smaller.
At 2:10 a.m., my phone rang.
Unknown number.
I let Ortiz’s recording software capture it.
A man spoke.
“Celia Ellis?”
“Yes.”
“My name is Adrian Bell.”
I sat upright.
“Where are you?”
“Not somewhere I can stay.”
“Police are looking for you.”
“I know.”
“You forged medical records for my daughter.”
“I did.”
“For my son?”
“Yes.”
“For Noah?”
“Yes.”
My throat tightened.
“Why?”
“Because Harold told me to.”
“That doesn’t explain anything.”
“No.”
His voice sounded tired.
“I did terrible things.”
“Where are you?”
“I need protection.”
“Call police.”
“I can’t trust them.”
“Because of Keene?”
Silence.
Then Bell said, “Keene isn’t the only one.”
My hand tightened.
“How many?”
“I don’t know.”
“What does Harold run?”
Another silence.
“A system.”
“What system?”
“He finds people in crisis. Marriages failing. Businesses failing. People with debts. People who want somebody gone.”
I felt cold.
“He arranges deaths?”
“He arranges narratives.”
The phrase sounded like Harold.
“Explain.”
“First the story. Then the evidence. Then the death fits the story.”
Rachel drinks.
Angela abuses medication.
Celia abandons her children.
June has a heart condition.
Noah has severe lung disease.
Every death needed a believable past.
Harold manufactured one.
“Why are there files on twenty-seven women?”
“Because not every plan happened.”
“And the red marks?”
“Completed.”
My mouth went dry.
“How many completed?”
“I don’t know.”
“There are five.”
“Then you found only one cabinet.”
I stood.
“What?”
Bell began breathing faster.
“The warehouse wasn’t the archive.”
“Where is the archive?”
“I’ll tell you.”
“When?”
“Now.”
He gave me an address.
Denise wrote it down.
An abandoned medical clinic outside the city.
“I’m there.”
Ortiz was already sending units.
Bell whispered, “Tell them no lights.”
“Why?”
“Because someone is watching.”
Then I heard a sound through the phone.
A door opening.
Bell stopped speaking.
“Adrian?”
Footsteps.
“Adrian?”
He whispered, “They found me.”
The line went dead.
Twenty minutes later, police entered the clinic.
Bell was gone.
There was blood on the floor.
A broken chair.
And an open filing cabinet.
Inside were folders.
Not twenty-seven.
Hundreds.
Ortiz called me from the scene.
“Celia.”
I could hear officers moving behind her.
“How many?”
“We don’t know yet.”
“Is Bell alive?”
“We don’t know.”
Then she stopped speaking.
“What?”
“There’s a photograph on the wall.”
“Of who?”
“You.”
I closed my eyes.
“Recent?”
“No.”
“How old?”
“About nine years.”
Nine years.
Before June was born.
Before I had ever married Vaughn.
The photograph showed me leaving a grocery store.
On the back, someone had written:
POSSIBLE MATCH.
V.E. APPROVED.
I had believed I met Vaughn by chance.
According to that photograph, Vaughn had chosen me long before he introduced himself.
Click here to continue reading: PART 7: The Photograph Taken Before I Met Vaughn Forced Me to Revisit Our First Encounter and Discover How Carefully He Had Chosen My Life
My Husband Called Eighty Dollars Enough for Groceries, Until a Broken-Down Car Exposed Where Our Children’s Money Had Really Gone
Part 6 of 48
