Chapter 5 - The apartment was never an accident
We reached a storage room and locked ourselves inside.
For the first time, Nicole told me why she knew my name.
Three years earlier, she worked as an internal auditor for Carroway Biomedical Systems.
I knew the company.
Everybody in Pittsburgh did.
Medical devices.
Government research contracts.
Private investors.
Thousands of employees.
“What does that have to do with Derek?”
“He did security work for one of their subcontractors.”
That fit.
Derek had always described himself vaguely as industrial security.
I never cared enough to ask for details.
Nicole continued.
She discovered fraudulent payments to shell vendors.
At first, ordinary financial misconduct.
Then she noticed several payments corresponded with shipments that never reached their listed destinations.
“Did you report it?”
“Yes.”
“To whom?”
“My supervisor.”
“What happened?”
“I got fired.”
Predictable.
Then someone broke into her house.
No valuables stolen.
Only her laptop.
She became frightened and copied remaining evidence onto a drive.
“Where is it?”
“I don’t have it anymore.”
“Who does?”
She looked at me.
“I gave it to your mother.”
I laughed from shock.
“My mother died when I was nineteen.”
Nicole’s face changed.
“What was her name?”
“Laura Bennett.”
Silence.
Nicole whispered:
“No.”
“What?”
“The woman I met called herself Laura Bennett.”
I stared.
“That’s impossible.”
“What did she look like?”
Nicole described her.
Early fifties.
Dark brown hair.
Small scar near the chin.
Green eyes.
My mother would have been fifty-four.
But she died in a car accident ten years earlier.
Closed casket.
My aunt handled everything because I was away at college.
I suddenly felt sick.
“Show me.”
Nicole had no photograph.
But she remembered where they met.
A diner outside Harrisburg.
Two years ago.
The woman knew my name.
My birth date.
The town where I grew up.
“She said if anything happened to her, I should never contact you.”
“Why?”
“She said you were safer believing she was dead.”
The room became too small.
Then Derek’s phone vibrated.
A message from M.
Police scanner picked up nothing yet. Where are you?
Nicole leaned over my shoulder.
Another message appeared.
Do not let Rachel leave the property.
Then:
Her mother will surface if she thinks the baby is in danger.
I stared at the words.
My mother.
Alive?
Nicole whispered:
“That’s why they chose you.”
Not because Derek loved me.
Not because our relationship accidentally became violent.
Someone had placed him close to me.
May you like
Waiting.
For my mother.
