Part 20
“Where are you going?”
“For a walk.”
“It’s raining.”
“I noticed.”
The door closed behind him.
Amelia sat alone with the anonymous photograph open on her phone.
The baby moved in slow, heavy turns now. Amelia pressed both hands to her belly and waited until the tightness in her chest eased.
She had spent her career insisting that an object’s history mattered more than the story a powerful owner told about it. Yet here she was, tempted to trust a photograph because it supported the version she already feared.
She deleted nothing.
She forwarded the original message headers to Nia.
Then she turned off the phone.
Daniel came home soaked forty minutes later with a bag of groceries they did not need.
He set a bunch of bananas on the counter.
“We have bananas,” Amelia said.
“These are different bananas.”
“How?”
“They’re less accusatory.”
She looked at him.
He leaned against the counter. “I’m sorry.”
“So am I.”
“I keep trying to make this simple.”
“I know.”
“It isn’t.”
“No.”
He took off his wet coat. “I still think Victor is guilty.”
“So do I.”
“And Vanessa?”
Amelia looked at the rain moving across the window.
“I think she spent one second deciding whether helping me would make her look guilty.”
Daniel waited.
“I don’t know what that makes her.”
“It makes her someone who let you fall.”
“Maybe.”
He nodded once. He did not argue.
Maya contacted Amelia at eleven-thirty that night.
The message contained only an address and a time.
Tomorrow. 8 a.m. Come alone if you can.
Daniel read it over Amelia’s shoulder.
“You’re not going alone.”
“It says if I can.”
“You can’t.”
Nia advised against going at all. Ortiz asked Amelia to forward the message and allow officers to make contact.
Maya stopped responding.
At seven-thirty the next morning, Amelia put on flat shoes and a loose black coat. Daniel waited by the door.
“I thought I was going alone.”
“You thought incorrectly.”
The address belonged to a twenty-four-hour laundromat in Jersey City. At eight, half the machines were empty. A man in paint-covered work clothes slept in a plastic chair while his dryer turned.
Maya sat in the back beside a vending machine. She wore a baseball cap and an oversized coat. Her hands were wrapped around a paper cup she had not touched.
When she saw Daniel, she stood.
“I said alone.”
“He’s not museum staff.”
“That isn’t the point.”
“What is the point?” Amelia asked.
Maya looked toward the front window. “I don’t know who is watching.”
“No one is watching,” Daniel said.
Maya’s expression sharpened. “That must be nice to believe.”
Amelia sat across from her. “Why did you disappear?”
“I was suspended.”
“For what?”
“Unauthorized access to protected records.”
“The change log.”
Maya nodded.
“Did you send the photograph?”
“No.”
Amelia studied her.
Maya took a flash drive from her pocket but kept it in her closed fist.
“I copied the log,” she said. “And the report file before it disappeared.”
“You have my report?”
“I had it.”
“What does that mean?”
“The drive was in my apartment. Someone came in Monday.”
Daniel glanced toward the entrance.
“Was anything else taken?” he asked.
“My laptop. An old camera. Jewelry. Enough to make it look normal.”
“Did you call the police?”
“Yes. They said it was a burglary.”
“Did you tell them about the drive?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because then I would have to explain why I stole museum records.”
Amelia lowered her voice. “You preserved evidence.”
“I violated policy.”
“You could be protected as a whistleblower.”
Maya laughed softly. “Protected by whom?”
The sleeping man shifted in his chair. A dryer buzzer sounded.
Maya opened her hand.
“This drive has the change log and screenshots from the database. I kept it in my locker, not my apartment.”
Daniel reached for it.
Maya pulled back. “Not you.”
He stopped.
She held it out to Amelia.
Amelia did not take it.
“Where did you get the records?”
“I used my credentials.”
“Were you authorized to access them?”
“The crate entries, yes. The administrator log, no.”
“How did you access that?”
Maya looked down.
“Maya.”
“I used Miriam’s password.”
Daniel exhaled.
Amelia said, “How did you get it?”
“She gave it to me last year when the database froze during inventory. She never changed it.”
“That makes the log vulnerable.”
“It makes my access improper. It doesn’t make the entries false.”
“It means the museum can say you created them.”
“I didn’t.”
“I believe you. But that is what they will say.”
Maya’s eyes filled with anger. “Then why did I risk my job?”
“Because you were frightened the truth would disappear.”
“It did disappear.”
“Not if we handle this correctly.”
Maya stared at the flash drive.
Daniel said, “Give it to the detective.”
Maya looked at him. “And tell her I committed a computer crime?”
“No,” Amelia said. “Give it to Nia. Let her arrange a protected transfer and document exactly what you did.”
Maya’s mouth tightened. “You sound like a policy manual.”
“I sound like someone who does not want Victor’s lawyers to turn you into the crime.”
The laundromat door opened.
All three of them looked up.
Vanessa entered.
Maya stood so fast her chair struck the wall.
Daniel moved between Vanessa and Amelia.
“What are you doing here?” he demanded.
Vanessa stopped near the front row of machines. Rain shone on the shoulders of her coat.
“Maya contacted me.”
Maya’s face went white.
“I did not.”
Vanessa looked genuinely confused. “I received a message from your number.”
She took out her phone.
The text said: I have the records. Amelia will meet me at the laundromat on Newark Avenue at eight. Come if you want the truth before Victor destroys it.
Maya checked her own phone.
“No. I didn’t send that.”
“Someone knew the meeting place,” Daniel said.
May you like
Only four people knew: Amelia, Daniel, Nia, and Ortiz. Unless Maya’s phone was compromised before she sent the message.
Amelia looked toward the front window. A dark SUV idled across the street.
