Page 8 of After All The Wreckage
If I wanted to, I could tell the department how I’d done it so they’d be protected in the future, and maybe I would. But not until Mom’s case was solved.
I rooted around their system, learning the ins and outs, and finally found Mom’s file. It was suspiciously thin. I didn’t know if it was because Muloney had done a shit job or because Dad had told him to be careful what he put online in case I came looking. Whatever the reason, there was nothing about her car’s computer being compromised like Dad had insinuated. The handful of notes were about where the Pathfinder had been towed, the stops she’d made before her trip to Cherry Bay, and people they’d interviewed at those locations. There weren’t even photos from the actual accident scene, which raised the hair on the back of my neck. The lack of information made me all the more determined to see Baloney-Muloney when he returned. I wanted photocopies of his handwritten notes and the pictures someone had to have taken.
Turning away from the disappointing search, I pulled up Mom’s calendar in our Marlowe & Co. system. There was nothing out of the ordinary for the day of the wreck. She had time blocked for yoga in the morning, a meeting with the DoD about our contract for background checks, and then a client meeting in the afternoon. The only thing that made me raise a brow was that she hadn’t referenced a case file for the client meeting. I’d check her physical planner later at home.
Still not prepared to give up, I turned my attention to scouring security footage from the day of the accident. I didn’t have video saved from our D.C. condo because I’d wiped the server clear when I’d sold the place, but I did have recordings from our office cams. I was still running security for thewannabe game development company who’d subleased the space from me.
Swiping through the stored files, I found the day of the accident. Mom had worn a black-and-white-checked blazer, a black turtleneck, and dress pants. Formal for her. Likely due to the meeting with the DoD. Her steps were hurried as she headed for the door, but nothing to make me think she was upset. I froze the screen, fingers lingering on her face.
Regret was like a computer virus. It ate away at your insides until nothing was left but spoiled zeros and ones. I wished I’d said something more important that morning. More poignant. More lasting. At least I’d shoutedI love youas I’d left. But had she felt the full impact of it? Had she heard how much she truly meant to me?
“I miss you,” I whispered, and then instantly felt guilty as my eyes landed on my breathing mother lying in the bed next to me.
I swallowed hard. Were the doctors right? Was she gone already? Were the thousands of dollars Nan and I had spent to get her into Shady Lane and keep her body breathing doing anything? Would she ever open her eyes, register me, and talk to me… say anything so I would have something besidesSee you at dinneras my last words from her?
Unexpected tears filled my eyes like they had at Dad’s office the day before.Nothing gets solved by crying, Rory-girl.
I rubbed my eyes and returned to my hunt for video evidence. Most businesses only kept security cam footage for thirty days unless it was subpoenaed by the authorities. Had the police done that for the places Mom had visited? I’d found none of it on the department’s server, so I doubted it. I searched each of the businesses only to be handed more disappointment.
If I’d done this last December, we’d be ahead of the game instead of miles behind.
As the sun sank behind the spirals of the buildings on the Bonnin campus, I kissed Mom’s cheek and said, “I love you. Maybe think about waking up, okay? You can hand Dad a healthy dose of fuck-you that would make both of our days.”
Then, with a heavy heart, I headed back to the cottage and Nan.
The porch light was shining on two pots of multicolored chrysanthemums that would bloom for a few more days. Nan and Pop’s place had always been full of color, almost year-round due to Nan’s love of gardening.
The half-timbered style of many of the homes on this side of Cherry Bay reflected the Englishmen who’d built them from plaster, stone, and maple wood that had been on the land before the cherry trees had taken over. Once thatched, Nan’s roof was now a bright blue tile, giving it a fairytale quality. The cottage had been remodeled several times over the centuries until it now accommodated three bedrooms, a single bathroom, a spacious kitchen, and a living room.
I parked my bike behind Pop’s yellow and rust-colored Jeep inside the detached two-car garage. Nan’s Beetle wasn’t there. She’d gone to bunco with friends for the first time in months. It was good she was doing something normal, but it also seemed like life was moving on without Mom. Like we were leaving her behind. Giving up.
I gritted my teeth, unlocked the front door, and punched in the alarm code that would have made the CIA happy. I made my way directly to Mom’s bedroom which I’d temporarily converted into an office. Once she was better, we’d figure out a new place to do business.
I tossed my things on a chair and went straight to the boxes sitting in the corner. They were Mom’s things I hadn’t had the heart to unpack yet. It took me two boxes before I came up with her scratched leather day planner. I opened it, and her tightbut slightly slanted print caused my heart and throat to squeeze closed. I forced myself to flip the pages until I found the day of her accident. In the two-o’clock slot for the client meeting, she’d writtenSpace Force, Lincoln Memorialin a shorthand code that only she and I knew.
I sat back, drumming my fingers on the pages. I’d closed all the outstanding cases, and we definitely hadn’t been working with anyone from the Space Force. Why hadn’t she logged it into our case files? She’d been nervous enough to use our shorthand code instead of writing it out. Unease filled me. Was this what had caused someone to mess with her car’s computer? Had the person she’d met done it, or had someone hacked their way in? There were only a couple of ways to get into a car’s systems—the easiest through the online navigation or by attaching a device to the car’s computer directly. If it had been the latter, the evidence was probably gone. Crushed with the totaled car at the junkyard.
Irritation and impotence whirled through me. Had Dad checked it out before the car had been picked clean and then destroyed?
I turned toward the window and the quiet street outside, searching for peace or answers or a wormhole into the past. The lantern-shaped streetlights barely shimmered through the fog that had rolled in from the Potomac River.
What the hell did Dad and Detective Muloney have that proved it hadn’t been an accident? And why hadn’t they been able to find out more in the eleven months since? For all his faults, Dad was damn good at his job, so if he didn’t have more, it was either because he wasn’t inclined to go looking, or it was hidden deep. Neither was an answer I liked.
I looked down at the day planner again, absentmindedly flipping pages until it fell open to a month before her accident. More coded notes, but this wasn’t our normal one. A stab of pain slid through me as I realized she hadn’t wanted me to be able toread it either. That stung more than anything Dad had said to me yesterday.
On the other side of the page, she’d drawn an icon of some sort. It almost looked like the Avenger symbol, except instead of an A and an arrow, there was an A and an S with a zig-zagged line inside the circle. I snapped a picture, loaded it into a search engine, and went down a rabbit hole trying to find anything that looked like it.
My phone rang, and I glanced down, tempted to ignore it, but then guilt ran through me. My best friend had left me several messages over the last two days, and I hadn’t returned them. Instead, as often happened when I was on a case, I’d lost sight of anything but the trail I was following.
“Hey! I was going to call you.”
Shay snorted. “Liar.” But there was no malice to it. Not anger or frustration either. She was exactly the forgiving angel she’d always been. “I need my wingwoman tonight.”
I groaned internally. “Shay?—”
“Please. You know I have a good feeling about this one. But…”
She didn’t trust herself. Not after the last cheating bastard who’d stomped all over her heart and then had the audacity to say it was her fault.
