Chương 7
“Feels like it.”
Bell looked toward the vending machine.
“You going to buy something?”
“No.”
“Then you’ve been staring at pretzels for four minutes.”
Rachel put in two dollars.
The machine dropped peanut M&M’s.
“I wanted pretzels.”
“You pressed B-seven.”
“I know what I pressed.”
Bell lifted both hands.
“Okay.”
Rachel ate the M&M’s anyway.
That evening, Emma asked what happened at the meeting.
Rachel said, “Boring legal stuff.”
Emma looked up from homework.
“Am I going to court?”
Rachel stopped.
“Who told you that?”
“Nobody.”
“Then why would you ask?”
Emma’s pencil rolled between her fingers.
“Because people go to court.”
Rachel sat across from her.
“We’re trying to keep you out of it.”
“That means maybe.”
Rachel wished children would remain fooled by adult grammar longer.
“Maybe.”
Emma looked back at the worksheet.
“Dad says I lied.”
Rachel’s body went cold.
“What?”
Emma’s eyes widened.
“Not to me.”
“Where did you hear that?”
“At school.”
“From who?”
“Madison’s brother knows Noah.”
Rachel stared.
Emma rolled her eyes.
“Noah’s dad works with Dad.”
There it was.
Not a direct message.
Not a clean violation.
A rumor moving through children because adults had talked where children could hear.
“What exactly did they say?”
“Madison said her brother said Noah said his dad said the whole thing got messed up because I panicked and sprayed Dad.”
Rachel’s hands began to shake.
Emma watched them.
“I didn’t panic.”
“No.”
“I was scared.”
“I know.”
“But I knew what I was doing.”
Rachel nodded.
“I know.”
“I aimed at his eyes.”
“I know.”
Emma looked down.
“That sounds bad.”
“No.”
“I hurt him on purpose.”
Rachel sat beside her.
She wanted to say what adults said when they wanted children to stop feeling something.
You did nothing wrong.
But Emma had done something.
She had made a decision to hurt someone because she believed her mother was in danger.
Pretending otherwise would not make it easier.
“You hurt him to stop him from grabbing you,” Rachel said.
Emma rubbed the eraser across the same answer until the paper thinned.
“I think about it.”
“The spray?”
“Him falling.”
“That was me.”
“I know.”
“I tripped him.”
“I know.”
“I’d do it again.”
Emma looked at her.
Rachel heard how that sounded.
She tried again.
“I wish none of it happened. But if I were back on that floor and he was moving toward you, I would stop him again.”
Emma’s eyes filled.
“Me too.”
Rachel put her arm around her carefully.
For a minute they stayed like that.
Then Emma said into Rachel’s shoulder, “Grandma’s internet really is terrible.”
Rachel laughed.
This time her ribs barely hurt.
The audit findings came two weeks later.
Morse asked Rachel to meet in person.
That frightened her before he said anything.
He arrived with another investigator and a department attorney whose name Rachel immediately forgot.
Morse explained that Grant’s access history showed multiple searches unrelated to documented investigations.
Not dozens.
Not hundreds.
Enough.
Tara’s vehicle registration.
Ruth’s address.
The freelance bookkeeper Rachel had met at the coffee shop.
A family court attorney Rachel had called once and never hired.
Rachel stopped him.
“What?”
Morse looked at his notes.
“An attorney named Steven Patel.”
Rachel’s face became hot.
“I called him from work.”
“When?”
“April.”
“Did you meet him?”
“No.”
“Did Grant know you contacted him?”
“I thought he didn’t.”
Morse let silence sit.
Rachel understood before he continued.
Grant had searched the attorney’s name two days after Rachel called.
The search itself did not prove why.
But then came another fact.
Grant had run Rachel’s license plate in connection with an internal query three times over four months.
There was no documented law-enforcement purpose.
He had queried Tara’s plate the morning of Rachel’s dentist appointment.
And Ruth’s address after Rachel spent a night there following an argument in June.
Rachel stared at the table.
“You can see all that?”
“Access logs exist for a reason,” Morse said.
“Did he know?”
“Know what?”
“That you could see.”
“He should have.”
Rachel almost laughed.
The sound came out wrong.
All those months Grant had seemed omniscient.
He had behaved as if information belonged to him because he could reach it.
He had not been magic.
He had left tracks.
The department placed him on unpaid status pending disciplinary proceedings.
The information was also provided to outside investigators.
Morse would not tell Rachel whether it would result in additional criminal charges.
She did not ask twice.
Outside, Bell waited beside Rachel’s car.
“You knew?” Rachel asked.
“Knew what?”
“The searches.”
“I knew there was an audit.”
“You knew what they found?”
“Some of it.”
Rachel stared at her.
“You could’ve told me.”
“I couldn’t.”
“I’ve been wondering if I was crazy for six weeks.”
Bell’s face stayed calm.
“I know.”
“No, you don’t.”
“You’re right.”
The easy apology disarmed Rachel.
She looked away.
Cars moved through the parking lot.
A delivery truck backed toward a loading bay, beeping at regular intervals.
Rachel crossed her arms.
“I’m angry at everybody today.”
“Reasonable.”
“Don’t agree with me.”
Bell nodded.
“Terrible behavior.”
Rachel looked at her.
Bell almost smiled.
Rachel hated that it worked.
The internal audit changed how people treated Grant.
Not all people.
That surprised Rachel too.
Two officers from his department contacted Bell to provide information about things Grant had said at work.
One remembered Grant joking that marriage was easier when you knew how to “check the facts.”
Another remembered him asking how long certain database access logs were retained.
Neither had reported it at the time.
A third officer publicly defended him.
Grant’s union representative criticized the department for making disciplinary decisions before the criminal case was resolved.
Rachel’s name appeared online again.
Someone found the clinic where she worked.
A one-star review appeared from an account she did not recognize.
“Dishonest and unstable,” it said.
Her supervisor removed Rachel from the public staff page temporarily.
Rachel was furious.
May you like
Then humiliated by being furious.
Then furious that humiliation had become one more thing she had to manage.
