Page 83 of Buried Too Deep

Phin took a moment to organize his thoughts. The partitioned hard drive just raised more questions. “Why would he keep the receipts where Cora’s mother could find them? They had to have been in plain view because she boxed them up.”

Antoine nodded. “You mean, if he had the hard drive all partitioned up and secret, why leave the receipts out where she might start asking questions?”

“Exactly,” Phin said. “I think it was so she’d see it as a clue and start digging in his computer, but she didn’t because she was so hurt at being left for another woman. But he was worried that one day he might not come back. He’d nearly been killed by Jarred Bergeron just a few weeks before. A lot of us had letters ready for next of kin when we were deployed.”

Phin remembered the one he’d written in excruciating detail. He’d told his family that he was sorry for so many things. Things they’d never been aware of. Things they hadn’t caused, like his anger and anxiety. And that he’d felt like a stranger in his own home more often than he’d felt like a legitimate part of them. He was glad they’d never read those letters. He’d burned them when he’d been discharged.

And then you left them without a single word.

He’d make up for that. He would.

“Jack had to have been aware of how dangerous his work was,” Phin went on. “So he left his wife clues in case he didn’t come home. I wonder if his killer knew that, too.”

Cora blinked. “You think that’s what someone is looking for in my house? The clues he left behind?”

He met her startled gaze. “I don’t know, but it’s a possibility.”

Molly wrote that on the whiteboard. “A decent possibility, actually.”

“But why look for these clues now?” Cora asked. “Why not back then?”

“You don’t know that they didn’t,” Phin said gently.

She sucked in a breath. “Oh. I never thought of that.”

“That’s what we’re here for,” Val said, patting her shoulder. “Clearly, it’s come up again because the body was found and identified. It wasn’t just that the body was found, because that was six weeks ago. The break-ins didn’t start until after he was identified. That means that whoever put him in that foundation wasn’t paying attention to the news saying someone had been found during demolition. They didn’t focus on Cora until his photo was publicized, after they’d ID’d him.”

Molly scribbled. “You’re right, Val. Keep going, people. What else has you scratching your heads?”

“Why the building in Houma?” Phin asked. “That was a very specific time frame—after the pilings and subfoundation were readied and the next day when the foundation was poured. How did his killer know about that building?”

Molly kept writing. “His killer was in Houma or somehow connected to the construction. Good thought, Phin. What else?”

“Did he have a partner—or partners?” Phin asked.

“You asked that of Alice,” Val observed.

Phin shrugged. “That’s a lot of work for one person, gathering clients, vetting them to make sure they weren’t undercover cops or Feds, because this was an indie operation. Someone had to be arranging the new identities and the logistics of the client’s erasure. WITSEC has a whole division of people to manage this.”

“Here’s a question, Molly,” Antoine said. “Who knew where Jack was the night he died? His client, clearly, but who else? Whoever the client was running from, like the case with Jarred Bergeron? Or maybe a partner?”

Molly wrote it down. “Cora, did you have any break-ins here in your house in the days after your father disappeared? Did any of his things go missing, like he might have tried to come back for them? If I’d killed someone and tried to make it seem like they’d left of their own volition, I’d want some of their things to disappear with them. Photos or trophies from high school, or even a passport. Your father’s passport was in one of the boxes in the attic.”

“My mother never told me anything like that, but I was only five and I think she was trying to shield me from the worst of it. I was devastated that he wasn’t coming home. I didn’t understand that he’d found another woman, but I heard my mother crying to my grandmother that he’d found another family. That I understood.” She sighed. “I hated him so much.”

“You should have, given what you knew,” Phin said. “Don’t beat yourself up.”

She shrugged halfheartedly. “It’s hard.”

“Who might your mother have confided in back then?” Molly pressed.

Cora frowned. “My grandmother, but they’re both gone and neither of them left diaries or journals. Mama depended a lot on Harry Fulton over the years, and he knew her from before I was born. He’s my attorney.”

“The one you were talking to yesterday?” Antoine asked. “Before we approached you?”

“Yes. He was at my christening. Harry’s always been around. He might know something. I can call him and ask.” She reached for her phone with her free hand, but Phin stopped her by grabbing that one as well.

“Wait. We need to check him out.”

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