Page 40 of Buried Too Deep

She shook herself. Focus. You can cry later. Setting her jaw, she opened her eyes to look at her computer screen. It was filled with the directory of her hard drive.

So many files. So many that were confidential.

She felt a degree of control return. At least she’d password-protected the folder where she kept her clients’ records. She pointed to the folder on the screen. “Did you guess the password to that one?”

Antoine shook his head. “No. Not yet, anyway. That’s a good one.”

Burke was watching her carefully. “Why do you have password protection on individual folders?” He held up a hand. “The contents are not my business, but we assumed someone was after the letters in your safe-deposit box. Is it possible they were looking for something else?”

Again she closed her eyes, pressing her fingertips into her temples. “Besides money?”

To her right, she heard Phin get up from the table. The refrigerator door was opened and closed. Moments later, she heard something sliding across the table in front of her.

She opened her eyes to see a platter of fruit, cheese, and crackers, still in the plastic tray from the grocery store. She’d bought it the day before, intending to snack on it while she worked at her computer, which was now on her kitchen table.

“You need to eat,” Phin said gruffly. “Your friend said you get…” He shrugged, his cheeks reddening slightly.

His hesitation to repeat Tandy’s term nearly made her chuckle. “Hangricidal? Yeah. Thank you, Phin.” She nibbled on a cracker, willing her stomach to settle.

Whatever they wanted, they’d nearly killed Joy to get it. “I need to check my bank accounts.”

Antoine adjusted the monitor so that she could see it and slid the keyboard so that she could reach it. “I’ve cleaned the malware and viruses from your system. You’re safe to check. I didn’t guess the password to your bank account, either, but they were monitoring your keystrokes. I’d change all the passwords immediately.”

Bile burned her throat and she swallowed it back. “Right.”

She input her username and password for her personal account, then held her breath while it connected. She let the breath out in a whoosh.

“It’s all still there.” Quickly she opened the account for her grandmother’s trust and it was all there, too. “All the investments are all still there.”

“So it wasn’t money,” Burke said.

Cora frowned. “You don’t think this has to do with the discovery of my father’s body?”

“I didn’t say that,” Burke replied. “But we need to pinpoint what they want so we can figure out who they are. That your home was broken into and a lot of listening devices planted after you got a visit from the Terrebonne Parish sheriff’s department makes for a pretty strong case in favor of your father. None of those letters were on your computer, were they?”

“No. I hadn’t scanned them in.”

Molly tilted her head. “You seem to be a digital person. Why not scan them in?”

Cora ate an apple slice while she considered her answer. “I don’t really remember my father. I was only five when he left us. Or we thought he’d left us.”

“I read all the letters,” Burke said. “Him begging forgiveness for leaving your mother for another woman was a common theme throughout, so I get why you thought that. I would have thought the same.”

She shot him a grateful smile. “Thank you. So…the letters were all I had of him. I hated them and hoarded them all at once. Which sounds crazy, I know.”

“No,” Phin murmured. “Not crazy at all.”

“I would have done that, too,” Molly said, her smile reassuring. “But why not scan them? You’ve scanned every receipt for every material you’ve bought for this house. Your taxes are impeccably recorded. What made the letters different?”

“The receipts have to be reported for reimbursement from the trust. My grandmother left her money to care for the house,” Cora explained. “She figured that John Robert and I would live here with our families. We both had degrees and jobs that could support us and any families we’d have, but the house is…well, a lot. So she left the money in a trust to care for the property, pay the taxes, et cetera. It’s invested well.” She sighed. “She was considering changing the provision of the trust, to leave half the money to John Robert and half to me and will the property to us jointly. But then, about two and a half years ago, John Robert got sick again and the doctor said he needed a bone marrow transplant. A few months later, my grandmother had a heart attack and died without changing her will.” She shrugged. “I spent the year between her death and John Robert’s trying to find a bone marrow donor, but I never did. After John Robert died, I was in a bad place for six months. I didn’t do anything with the trust, or the house, or anything. I went to work and came home. Honestly, I didn’t have the mental energy to worry about the letters.”

“And the last six months?” Molly asked.

Cora laughed, but it was flat. “I’ve been cleaning the house. Harry Fulton, my attorney, has been keeping the taxes paid and the investments going. This morning was the first time we’d actually talked in person in two years. It was all emails and texts. But you asked about the letters. I hated my father, but, like I said, the letters were all I had. I kept them in a strongbox under my bed. I didn’t want my mom to know I was keeping them. She’d get this hurt look on her face every time one would arrive in the mail. I don’t think she ever got over the betrayal.”

Her throat thickened and she had to clear it. “She died thinking he’d left her for another woman when he was dead all along.”

A warm hand covered hers. Phin Bishop. Trying to comfort her.

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