Chapter 13 - Stephen’s last lie
Stephen denied touching Anna’s car.
The photograph placed him beside it.
Not tampering.
Standing.
He finally admitted he met her at Blue Ridge that afternoon.
“She asked me to help.”
“With what?”
“Getting records out.”
Anna believed Sloan had compromised internal systems.
She wanted copies moved somewhere safe.
Stephen agreed.
Why?
Because by then he wanted out.
He had learned Sloan was using school transportation budgets to expand the fraud.
Children’s buses.
That line changed him.
Maybe late.
Still.
He helped Anna copy files.
Then told her to leave.
“What happened to the car?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did you see anyone near it?”
“Yes.”
“Who?”
Stephen closed his eyes.
“Carol.”
Everyone turned.
Carol went pale.
“No.”
Stephen insisted.
Carol approached Anna’s car after he left.
Carol admitted being there.
“I was putting the drive in her trunk.”
“What drive?”
A backup.
The drive investigators never found after the crash.
She had hidden it inside the spare-tire compartment.
When Anna died, the vehicle went to impound.
Then disappeared from records.
Sold for salvage.
Who authorized release?
Lieutenant Price.
Who purchased the wreck?
Blue Ridge Municipal Services.
There.
Sloan had likely been searching for the drive too.
Did they find it?
Apparently not.
Years later, the salvaged car had been crushed.
Or so records claimed.
Then Mara remembered something.
After Anna’s funeral, she received a package.
Not the envelope she recently sent me.
A small metal object.
She thought it was a broken USB adapter and threw it into a memory box.
She still had it.
Inside was a micro-drive.
Damaged.
But recoverable.
Anna had not trusted the trunk alone.
She had copied the archive again.
The recovered data contained internal audio from Blue Ridge.
Sloan.
Henderson.
Price.
Stephen.
Carol.
Everyone.
Different levels.
Different guilt.
Then the final file.
Audio recorded inside Blue Ridge’s garage.
Anna:
“You touch my car again and I call Daniel tonight.”
Unknown man:
“You should have done that already.”
Anna:
“I know who you are.”
Man:
“No, you know the name I use.”
My skin went cold.
Not Sloan.
Different voice.
Then:
“Daniel Bennett thinks he left this kind of work behind.”
Anna:
“Leave him out of it.”
The man laughed.
“Daniel was always the point.”
I stared at Rob.
He looked as confused as I felt.
Someone had known my federal background before Henderson.
Someone had targeted Anna partly because of me.
Why?
Then audio metadata revealed the date.
Five years ago.
Three days before Anna died.
The speaker identified himself in another fragment.
“Tell Hayes his old friend says hello.”
Hayes.
Rob?
Or someone from our past.
Rob whispered one name.
“Calvin Moore.”
I knew it immediately.
A former contractor we had helped expose fifteen years earlier.
May you like
Officially, Calvin Moore had died in prison six years ago.
Apparently not.
