Richard Hale had been my mother’s boss for nineteen years.
That morning, he had hugged me at her funeral.
I had thanked him for coming.
Outside, something scraped against the lock.
I opened the file box at my feet.
Inside were labeled folders, a flash drive taped under the lid, bank records, copies of documents, and one red folder filled with wire transfer records and signatures.
Then I saw the back wall.
A sheet of plywood covered part of it.
Behind the plywood was a section of chain-link fence that had already been cut open.
My mother had prepared an escape route.
The man outside spoke again.
“Open the unit, Emily. Your mother is dead because she stopped cooperating.”
That sentence told me everything.
She had not simply died.
Someone had made it happen.
