The rain had stopped by morning.<\/p>\n
I found the envelope beneath the front door when I returned from the lake house.<\/p>\n
There was no postage, no return address, and no name on the front. Only my address, written in black ink.<\/p>\n
I carried it into the kitchen without opening it.<\/p>\n
For several minutes, I simply stared at it.<\/p>\n
After everything that had happened, I had learned not to treat ordinary objects as harmless.<\/p>\n
The envelope was thick.<\/p>\n
Something rigid rested inside.<\/p>\n
I called Priya.<\/p>\n
She arrived forty minutes later with gloves and a small evidence bag.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou didn't touch the seal?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOnly to bring it inside.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cGood.\u201d<\/p>\n
She opened it carefully.<\/p>\n
A brass key dropped onto the table.<\/p>\n
It was attached to a narrow paper tag.<\/p>\n
The handwriting stopped me.<\/p>\n
I knew it.<\/p>\n
Edwin Ashford's.<\/p>\n
Priya read the tag aloud.<\/p>\n
\u201cLocker seventeen.\u201d<\/p>\n
I looked toward the hallway.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat's not in the house.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo.\u201d<\/p>\n
She turned the key over.<\/p>\n
A number had been stamped into the metal.<\/p>\n
17.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhere is it?\u201d she asked.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don't know.\u201d<\/p>\n
The next afternoon, we searched the old company property records.<\/p>\n
There was a storage building listed beneath an outdated subsidiary name.<\/p>\n
Locker seventeen was inside.<\/p>\n
The facility had been closed for almost six years.<\/p>\n
When we arrived, the manager met us with a ring of keys and an uncomfortable expression.<\/p>\n
\u201cGraham used to come here,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
I looked at Priya.<\/p>\n
\u201cHow often?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery few months.\u201d<\/p>\n
The locker was dusty.<\/p>\n
The key fit.<\/p>\n
Inside was a cardboard box.<\/p>\n
There were no diamonds.<\/p>\n
No cash.<\/p>\n
No dramatic confession.<\/p>\n
There were files.<\/p>\n
Dozens of them.<\/p>\n
Priya opened the first folder.<\/p>\n
The documents concerned the employee trust.<\/p>\n
The second contained old board correspondence.<\/p>\n
The third contained photographs.<\/p>\n
I recognized myself in one.<\/p>\n
It had been taken from across the street outside my office.<\/p>\n
Another showed me entering a bank.<\/p>\n
Another showed Priya leaving the courthouse.<\/p>\n
My stomach tightened.<\/p>\n
\u201cHow recent?\u201d I asked.<\/p>\n
Priya checked the dates.<\/p>\n
Some photographs had been taken before Graham's arrest.<\/p>\n
Others were only weeks old.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was still having someone watch you.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAfter his conviction?\u201d<\/p>\n
She didn't answer immediately.<\/p>\n
Then she shook her head.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis could have been someone else.\u201d<\/p>\n
I looked at the photographs again.<\/p>\n
The final image showed the front of my new office.<\/p>\n
Taken three days earlier.<\/p>\n
That was impossible.<\/p>\n
Graham had been in custody.<\/p>\n
Someone else had access to the information.<\/p>\n
Priya closed the folder.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe're giving this to investigators.\u201d<\/p>\n
I nodded.<\/p>\n
But something bothered me.<\/p>\n
The key had come from Edwin.<\/p>\n
The surveillance had continued after Graham's conviction.<\/p>\n
And the box contained documents that went beyond the pension fraud.<\/p>\n
At the bottom was a thin blue folder.<\/p>\n
Inside was a single handwritten page.<\/p>\n
Edwin had written it shortly before his arrest.<\/p>\n
The first sentence made my hands go cold.<\/p>\n
Graham was never supposed to know about the second account.<\/p>\n
Priya read over my shoulder.<\/p>\n
\u201cSecond account?\u201d<\/p>\n
I turned the page.<\/p>\n
The rest was missing.<\/p>\n
There was a torn edge where another page had been removed.<\/p>\n
Priya stared at it.<\/p>\n
\u201cSomeone got here before us.\u201d<\/p>\n
The realization settled heavily between us.<\/p>\n
The financial case was not finished.<\/p>\n
Graham had not been the only person hiding money.<\/p>\n
And whoever had removed that page knew exactly what we were looking for.<\/p>\n
The rain had stopped by morning. I found the envelope beneath the front door when I returned from the lake house. There was no postage, no return address, and no … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16267,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16275","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-insightdrama"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16275","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16275"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16275\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16304,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16275\/revisions\/16304"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/16267"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16275"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16275"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16275"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}