Chương 6
Richard almost smiled.
“That can also be true.”
He opened the seam.
Inside the stuffing was a plastic waterproof sleeve.
Brooks leaned closer but did not touch it.
Richard removed the sleeve.
Inside were three objects.
A microSD card.
A folded strip of paper.
A small brass key.
Richard laid them on a clean sheet of printer paper.
Brooks photographed everything.
Lucy stared at the doll’s open side.
“Can you sew her back?”
“Yes.”
“You know how?”
“No.”
“Then don’t.”
Mara, standing by the door, said, “I do.”
Lucy handed her the doll.
That simple act contained more trust than anything Lucy had given Richard.
He tried not to resent it.
Brooks unfolded the paper.
It held a series of numbers and one handwritten sentence.
IF THEY SAY I STOLE IT, ASK WHO AUTHORIZED PROJECT ORCHARD.
Ruiz read over her shoulder.
“Project Orchard mean anything to you?”
Richard shook his head.
Brooks looked at the brass key.
“Locker key?”
“Probably.”
Stamped into the metal were the numbers 214.
Richard said, “Transit station. Gym. Storage facility.”
“Could be dozens.”
Lucy said, “Bus station.”
Everyone looked at her.
She pointed to the key.
“Mommy went there.”
“When?”
“Last week.”
“Which bus station?”
“The big one.”
There were two.
Lucy described a ceiling with green glass panels.
Union Terminal.
Brooks said, “They have rental lockers near the lower concourse.”
Richard looked at the microSD card.
“Can we read it here?”
Brooks shook her head.
“Not on an uncontrolled device.”
“How long?”
“We’ll submit it.”
“How long?”
She gave him a level look.
“Evidence processing is not a drive-through.”
“Meanwhile Anna is missing.”
“And meanwhile a bad forensic copy can ruin a case.”
Richard knew that.
He hated her for being right because he had spent a career saying the same thing.
Lucy asked, “What’s on it?”
No one answered.
She looked at Richard.
“You know?”
“No.”
“But you think you know.”
He considered lying.
“No. I think your mother believed it mattered enough to risk you carrying it.”
Lucy absorbed that.
“And the key?”
Brooks said, “We can check the station tonight.”
“I’m going,” Lucy said.
“No,” four adults replied at once.
She glared at all of them.
Richard almost laughed again.
The station locker contained a canvas grocery bag, three hundred dollars in cash, a prepaid phone with no battery installed, a child’s birth certificate, and an envelope addressed to Richard.
Brooks did not permit him to open the envelope until it had been photographed and logged.
The handwriting on the front was Anna’s.
He knew before anyone told him.
His name looked different in her adult hand.
Less angry than he remembered.
Richard Vale.
No Dad.
He opened it.
There were two pages.
Richard,
If Lucy reaches you, then I failed to get us out cleanly.
Do not assume I am dead because someone says I am. You made that mistake once.
He stopped.
Brooks watched him but said nothing.
Richard continued.
I know that’s cruel. I’m sorry. I don’t have time to make it nicer.
Northbridge has been following me for six weeks. Daniel Cole is the one I’ve seen most. I think he works for Halcyon, but I don’t know whether Halcyon officially knows what he’s doing.
There is evidence on the card that patient records were altered in a clinical risk database to hide adverse events tied to a device subsidiary. The problem is larger than falsified records. People were flagged internally as injured by hardware failures, but external reports changed cause classifications. Some settlement files were routed through shell contractors. I found the discrepancies while doing data-quality reconciliation.
I copied more than I was authorized to copy. They will call it theft. Some of it may legally be theft. Do not lie for me.
Richard paused again.
That line was Anna so precisely that he had to sit down.
Do not lie for me.
She knew him.
After all those years, she knew exactly which temptation would seize him first.
He read on.
Project Orchard appears to be the internal name for the cleanup. I cannot prove who authorized it. The files on the card include audit logs and email exports, but the strongest piece is not on the card.
Cole knows I have something else. That is why he has not simply turned me in.
Do not take Lucy to my apartment.
Do not trust anyone who arrives too quickly with a perfect explanation.
And if you are angry that I stayed alive and let you bury me, be angry later.
For now, keep her safe.
She likes grilled cheese without tomato, hates bananas, lies when she is scared, reads above her grade level, and will pretend she is not tired until she falls asleep somewhere stupid.
She has your habit of correcting people.
I’m sorry about that too.
Tell her I did not leave her.
Anna
Richard finished reading.
No one spoke.
Lucy sat beside him on a metal bench in the terminal security office, swinging one muddy boot because it did not reach the floor.
“Did she say something about me?”
Richard folded the letter carefully.
“Yes.”
“What?”
“That you hate bananas.”
“I do.”
“That you read above your grade level.”
“I do.”
“That you lie when you’re scared.”
Lucy stopped swinging her foot.
Anna had known exactly what she was doing.
Richard looked at her.
“She also said she did not leave you.”
Lucy stared at the floor.
The silence afterward lasted long enough that Brooks turned away.
Richard put the letter back in its evidence sleeve.
At nine-thirty that night, Helen Park drove Lucy to Richard’s house after emergency placement clearance came through with conditions. A caseworker would check in the next morning. Richard had agreed to surrender access to the firearm safe temporarily, which offended him in principle and relieved him in practice.
His house looked wrong with a child in it.
Too many sharp corners.
Too much glass.
May you like
Too much gray.
Margaret had chosen color. After she died, Richard had gradually removed it without ever deciding to. Cream walls. Charcoal furniture. Dark wood. A kitchen designed by someone who believed chrome could substitute for warmth.
