Page 41 of Buried Too Deep

Cora tried for a grateful smile but couldn’t muster one.

He just patted her hand. “Scanning in the letters would have made them seem more important than you wanted to admit they were,” he said softly.

“Exactly.” His hand was warm and solid and she missed it when he pulled it away. “So I just left them in the strongbox. I nearly burned them after John Robert died. I was so angry. I’d tried to find my father so many times, so that he could get tested for a marrow match, but the letters kept coming, talking about inane topics that I didn’t care about.” Her voice broke. “His son was dying, and he didn’t care.” She dashed at tears, hating that she’d hated him when he’d been dead all along.

Antoine hmmed thoughtfully. “Did he send letters to your brother?”

“Yes. But he sent more to me. John Robert burned his. I told him I’d done the same,” she admitted. “I figured I got more letters because John Robert was so young when our father disappeared.”

“That’s a theory,” Molly said. “Let’s back up. The intruder targeted you either because of your father or for some other reason. Let’s talk about what other reasons there can be. I assume that if they’d been going to steal your money, they would have done so already, so for now let’s take money off the table.” She leaned forward, resting her forearms on the table. “What’s in the password-protected folder, Cora?”

It didn’t make sense to keep it secret. She hadn’t done anything illegal. “Client information from my side job.” They all stared at her expectantly. “I double majored in computer science and information science. My MS is in library science. Most librarians have some computer know-how. We help clients who come in to use the library’s computers. Sometimes it’s a simple Google search, sometimes we help them set up a Facebook account so that they can see their grandchildren’s photos. And sometimes they’re looking for someone—an old classmate or an old flame. I’m good at finding things. One day a client asked if he could pay me to find information on a daughter he hadn’t seen in years. I found the woman with no problem. He paid me fifty dollars. I didn’t want to take it, but he insisted. I put it in the collection box at my church. But word got out and pretty soon, other people in the community were asking me to find people and other information, too.”

Antoine’s eyes widened. “You hung out your PI’s shingle?”

“No, nothing like that. I never charge more than fifty dollars and I always put the cash in the collection box. But it made me feel useful at a time that I…wasn’t.”

Phin frowned. “Wasn’t what?”

“Useful,” she murmured. “John Robert was dying and I couldn’t stop it. I couldn’t fix him. I couldn’t do anything.”

“You felt helpless,” Molly said.

Cora nodded. “John Robert knew what I was up to. He gave me this computer. He did network security before he got too sick to work.” Her lips curved even though her heart ached. “He would have been so mad at me for making my password his name and age.”

Antoine just smiled. “At least you protected the folder.”

“People trusted me with their secrets.”

Burke leaned back in his chair, folding his hands over his belly like he’d done at his house that afternoon. “Is it possible the intruder was after one of those secrets?”

Cora hated the very thought. “I suppose. I mean, a few were…questionable requests. One woman thought her husband was cheating—he was. One man thought his business partner was stealing from him because the man had bought a new boat, but the partner had inherited the money. I suppose that someone might want something like that.”

Molly shook her head. “They’ve gone to extraordinary means. Breaking in here, planting bugs. Breaking into our office and shooting Joy. Chasing you through the Quarter. I think it would have to be bigger than what you’re talking about. Would you be willing to let us look at your client records? Just to rule that out?”

“You’ll keep it confidential? Even if someone did something not exactly legal?”

Burke huffed. “We’re not the cops, Cora. We’re not going to turn anyone in. Unless they were involved in the attack on Joy.”

Cora blew out a breath. “Fine, you can check.”

Phin had crossed his arms over his chest. “Back to your father. You said you tried to contact him. How did you do that?”

Burke’s brows lifted. “Very good question. And when did you start looking?”

“I started two and a half years ago, when John Robert’s doctor said he needed a marrow transplant.”

“Before your grandmother died,” Phin said, and she nodded.

“She lived four months after that. She didn’t think Jack would help, even if I did find him, but I was desperate. I called around to all the places Jack mentioned in his letters, asking if they’d seen him. Nobody had. I tried to find him through credit cards and variations on his name. Jack Elliot is a common name, but I called every one in every state. I had an old video of him from Christmas the year he disappeared and I was looking for someone who sounded the same. I called morgues and hospitals and I even flew to a few places where he’d mailed letters from years before. I picked places he’d mailed from more than once. He traveled around a lot. I had an old photo of him and did an age progression program on it. I passed it around at police stations and train stations and restaurants and hotels.” She sighed. “But I got nothing. Then the letters started back up and I got hopeful, that maybe he knew I was looking for him, but those letters were all postmarked from other countries. He was seeing the world. Or so the letter writer claimed. I was so angry that he never gave me a way to write him back. John Robert was getting worse and worse and then…he died. After that, I put Jack’s letters in the strongbox without even reading them. I was too heartbroken and numb over my brother to think about my father. Until the detectives showed up at the library to say he’d been dead all this time.”

“You may have stirred something up,” Burke allowed. “But I’d think they would have made their move back when you were searching. Not now.”

“Her father was still missing then,” Phin said. “She wasn’t a threat.”

“You’re right,” Molly said with a nod. “It wasn’t until his body turned up that someone would have wanted to know if Cora had anything incriminating.”

Phin’s expression was grim. “Like letters written by a dead man?”

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