Chapter 5: The Price of Trust

“You replied to the email,” Nora said.

“Yes.”

“And then you signed the settlement.”

“Yes.”

She was standing beside the hospital bed, the two reports spread across the blanket. Maisie had gone back to the playroom with Peter. Nora had waited until the door shut before asking me to read the reply aloud.

“Tell me what you knew,” she said.

“I knew an investigator had prepared a report. I was told it found faulty wiring.”

“You approved a revised version.”

“I approved something from my office account. Helen is checking what I was sent.”

Nora pushed the papers away. “Evan told me somebody would bury his warnings. I spent six years trying to prove he was right. Now you want me to wait while your lawyer checks your inbox.”

“No. I want you to see everything she finds.”

“I’m looking at enough.”

She left the reports on the bed and went into the bathroom. I heard the tap run. I wanted to follow her, but she had asked me a direct question and received an answer she was entitled to hate. I stayed where I was.

When she came back, her face was dry.

“Tessa said there was one page Gideon didn’t know she had,” she said. “If she disappeared because she tried to send it to me, I’m going to find her.”

“You have no address.”

“She mailed one of the photographs.”

Nora showed me the envelope she had kept in her bag. The return address was a postal box in Waukegan. Helen could find out whether it was still active without alerting Gideon’s office, but Nora insisted that we go ourselves to the storefront where Tessa had sent it.

“Peter says you need rest,” I said.

“Peter can tell me that himself.”

He did. Nora listened, ate the lunch he brought, and persuaded him to let her leave once the hospital finished its observations. She did not mistake his permission for a clean bill of health. She walked slowly, taking the elevator instead of the stairs.

Before we went anywhere, she chose a place for Maisie to stay. Peter’s sister, Grace, ran a small family home outside Evanston. Nora spoke to her on a video call while Maisie sat on her lap. Grace showed Maisie a kitchen table covered in crayons and a dog asleep beneath it.

“Do I have to leave Bunny?” Maisie asked.

“No,” Grace said. “The dog has his own toys.”

Maisie considered this. “He can’t have Bunny.”

“Then I’ll tell him.”

Nora gave Grace the hospital discharge information and two phone numbers, one hers and one Peter’s. She did not give her Roman’s name as the person to call first. I noticed and said nothing.

At the postal shop, the clerk would not tell us who rented the box. He did recognize Tessa’s photograph. She had come in two days earlier looking frightened, he said, and left with an overnight package she had addressed herself.

“Did she send it?” Nora asked.

“No. She put it back in her purse.”

Outside, Nora stood beside the car, thinking.

“She intended to mail it,” I said.

“She changed her mind because she saw someone.” Nora looked across the street. “Or because she realized a package could be intercepted.”

Her phone rang from an unknown number. She answered without speaking.

“Tessa?” a woman asked.

“No. This is Nora Ellis.”

The caller inhaled sharply. “She said you might come. I’m her neighbor. She left a key with me in case she didn’t get home.”

We met the woman in a crowded café. She would not give us the key. She handed Nora a folded note instead.

If I miss our call, don’t come to my apartment. Ask the clerk about the package. There is no package. The page is where I first told you to look.

Nora reread it three times.

“Where did she first tell you to look?” I asked.

“At Evan’s inspection forms. She said to read the dates.”

We had read the dates. They showed Evan had reported the fire doors before the fire. Nora searched the photographs on her phone again and enlarged one of his forms. At the bottom, in Evan’s handwriting, was a reference number.

“It’s not a repair ticket,” she said. “It’s a storage number.”

Helen located a city archive listing under the number: a sealed set of project records deposited during an earlier insurance dispute. The file was restricted, but its inventory was public. It listed alarm logs, contractor correspondence, and an inspection report.

The original material still existed.

Gideon had spent six years making everyone argue over copies while the records sat in a warehouse managed by an insurance firm. We could seek them through the investigation. We could also alert Gideon that we knew where they were.

“He’ll try to get there first,” I said.

Nora took the phone from my hand and looked at the listing herself. “Then let him think we found something else.”

We built the trap around a false copy of the bookkeeper’s files. Helen prepared a drive containing documents Gideon already knew existed and one invented reference to a private locker. She recorded its contents and arranged for Detective Vega to receive the same copy. If Caleb tried to seize it, the attempt would be evidence of its own.

I called Ellis at the estate and said I was sending a courier to collect personal papers from my office. The courier carried the false drive openly in a clear evidence pouch. Nora and I watched a live feed from a car parked across the street.

Caleb appeared before the courier reached the front steps.

He had changed out of his suit. His right wrist was bandaged. He stopped the courier, showed a company credential, and demanded the pouch. The courier refused and stepped back toward the car.

Caleb reached for his phone instead.

My own phone vibrated seconds later. A message from an unlisted number held a photograph of Maisie at Grace’s kitchen table, coloring beside the sleeping dog. The image had been taken through a window.

Call off your courier.

Nora saw it over my shoulder. For a moment, neither of us moved.

Then she called Grace.

“Take Maisie to the back room,” she said when Grace answered. “Lock the door. Peter is coming. Tell me if anyone approaches the house.”

Grace did not waste time asking why. We heard her call Maisie’s name. The dog barked once.

Nora looked at me. The fear was there, but she was already putting her coat on.

“Caleb knows where she is,” she said. “I’m going to get my daughter.”