Chương 8
He hated that.
Walter finished half the sandwich.
“What do you want from me?”
“Find Cole.”
“The police are finding Cole.”
“Find him anyway.”
“Richard.”
“Quietly.”
“Why?”
“Because if he works for Halcyon, I want to know who hired him. If he doesn’t, I want to know who he’s really protecting.”
Walter folded the sandwich wrapper.
“You’re retired.”
“I’m aware.”
“You don’t have subpoena power.”
“I’m aware.”
“You don’t have investigators.”
Richard looked at him.
Walter sighed.
“One investigator.”
At two in the morning, Richard woke to the sound of a cabinet closing.
He went downstairs.
Lucy stood in the kitchen wearing the enormous T-shirt and her red coat, eating dry cereal from a coffee mug.
“You found food.”
She froze.
“Yes.”
“That was not a criticism.”
She kept chewing.
Richard turned on the light above the stove instead of the ceiling.
“Couldn’t sleep?”
“I was sleeping.”
“Past tense.”
She nodded.
He opened the refrigerator.
“You want milk?”
“No.”
He poured himself water.
Lucy sat at the kitchen island.
“Are the police finding Mommy?”
“They’re trying.”
“Trying means no.”
“Usually.”
She ate another handful of cereal.
Richard sat across from her.
“Did your mother ever tell you why she didn’t contact me?”
Lucy’s eyes lowered.
He regretted the question immediately.
“You don’t have to—”
“She said you’d take me.”
Richard stopped.
“Take you where?”
“From her.”
“Why would she think that?”
“She said you don’t forgive mistakes.”
The refrigerator motor clicked off.
Richard looked at the child.
“What mistake?”
Lucy shrugged.
“Maybe me.”
“No.”
The word came too sharply.
Lucy flinched.
Richard lowered his voice.
“No. You were not a mistake.”
“You don’t know.”
“I know enough.”
“How?”
“Because adults can make mistakes around a child. That doesn’t make the child the mistake.”
Lucy looked at the cereal.
Richard had spent decades crafting arguments to persuade juries. None had felt as fragile as the sentence he had just said.
After a while, Lucy asked, “Did you hate my dad?”
“I didn’t know your father well.”
“Mommy said you hated him.”
Richard rubbed his thumb over a small scratch in the countertop.
“I thought he was dangerous for her.”
“Was he?”
“Sometimes.”
“That’s not yes or no.”
“No.”
Lucy looked up.
Richard said, “People aren’t always yes or no.”
“You said he was dangerous.”
“He had a temper. He got into fights. He made some bad decisions.”
“Mommy said he played guitar.”
“He did.”
“She said he made eggs with too much pepper.”
Richard had never known that.
“She said he was funny.”
“He could be.”
“You did know him.”
“A little.”
“Did he die?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“Drowned.”
“Accident?”
“That’s what investigators concluded.”
“Mommy said it wasn’t.”
Richard’s hand stopped on the counter.
“What did she say?”
Lucy was quiet.
“Lucy.”
“She said the same people who said she was dead said Daddy’s death was an accident.”
A cold sensation moved through Richard’s chest.
“Did she say who?”
“No.”
“Did she ever say why they wanted him dead?”
Lucy’s face closed again.
Too many questions.
Richard stopped.
“Sorry.”
She stared at him.
“You keep saying that.”
“I expect I’ll need practice.”
She finished the cereal.
“Can I go back to bed?”
“You don’t need permission.”
She climbed off the stool.
At the doorway, she turned.
“Mommy said you were scary.”
Richard almost said she was right.
Instead he waited.
Lucy added, “You’re mostly annoying.”
Then she left.
At nine the next morning, Detective Brooks arrived with Ruiz and a digital forensic analyst named Priya Shah.
Lucy sat at the kitchen table in borrowed clothes Helen had brought from an emergency supply closet: jeans slightly too long and a green sweatshirt with the tags removed.
She still wore the red coat.
Shah placed a laptop on the table.
“We made a forensic image of the card.”
Richard appreciated the terminology.
“What’s on it?”
“Encrypted folders, exported email files, database audit logs, spreadsheets, and several scanned documents.”
“Can you open everything?”
“Most.”
“Most?”
“One encrypted archive has a separate password.”
“Any clue?”
“We’re working on it.”
Brooks said, “What we can view supports at least part of Anna’s claim.”
Lucy looked up from toast.
“You found Mommy?”
“No.”
Her face dropped.
Brooks sat across from her.
“We found things she wanted us to find.”
“Bad things?”
“Yes.”
“Then why didn’t she just give them to police?”
No adult answered immediately.
Richard finally said, “Because she didn’t know which police to trust.”
Brooks looked at him.
“What?” he said.
“She also stole proprietary data.”
“Copied.”
“Unauthorized copying can be theft.”
“I’m aware.”
Lucy looked between them.
“You’re fighting.”
“No,” Brooks said.
“Yes,” Richard said at the same time.
Brooks closed her eyes briefly.
Richard said, “We disagree.”
“Is that fighting?”
“Sometimes.”
Brooks opened a file.
“Anna’s audit logs show that several patient adverse-event records were edited after clinical review. Severity classifications changed. Device-related failure codes were replaced with less specific causes.”
“By whom?”
“User credentials belonging to multiple employees.”
“Meaning compromised credentials.”
“Possibly.”
“Or coordinated alteration.”
“Possibly.”
Richard disliked her caution again.
Brooks continued. “There are also internal emails discussing Project Orchard.”
“Who?”
“Senior legal staff. Risk management. Data compliance.”
“Names?”
“Some.”
“Executives?”
“Not in the files we’ve decrypted.”
“What does Orchard mean?”
Shah answered.
“Based on context, it appears to be a remediation project after discovery of inconsistent adverse-event reporting.”
“Remediation,” Richard repeated.
Brooks said, “The emails are ambiguous. They could show a legitimate internal effort to correct bad reporting.”
“Anna thought otherwise.”
“Anna also appears to have exported confidential patient-related data.”
“Which proves nothing about intent.”
“I didn’t say it did.”
“You’re implying—”
Lucy pushed her plate away.
Everyone stopped.
She stared at Richard.
“You sound like Mommy when she got mad at the computer.”
Richard sat back.
Brooks almost smiled.
The doorbell rang.
Lucy’s chair scraped.
Richard stood immediately.
Ruiz moved toward the hallway.
Walter’s voice came through the security speaker.
“Open the door before I freeze.”
Lucy relaxed by a fraction.
Richard noticed.
May you like
He let Walter in.
Walter removed his coat.
