Chapter 11 - A Door That Stayed LockedWe moved again that afternoon. I hated packing my life into two bags. I hated that Charlotte's tiny socks had become the only things I could unpack without fear.

"How did he find the address?" I asked.

Dana refused to speculate. "We'll check the safety steps, reduce what information is shared, and document the contact. You're not responsible for figuring out every method he might use."

Alex checked windows while I sat with tea and tried not to mistake every car door for a threat. He had learned to move quietly in places where noise mattered. Here, he used that patience to let me decide when I wanted company.

"Tell me something normal," I said.

"The hardware store has a sale on paint."

I laughed despite myself. "That's terrible."

"You asked for normal, not interesting."

Then the doorbell rang.

We froze. Alex looked through the peephole and relaxed a fraction. Detective Bell stood outside with an older man carrying a banker box.

The man was Howard Finch, Richard's accountant for twenty-two years. He looked as if he hadn't slept.

"I'm sorry," he said before sitting down. "I signed off on transactions I should have questioned."

He laid out records tracing rental income from Mom's building into North Cedar. There were fabricated repair expenses, transfers to a consulting account, and payments to people who seemed to have done no consulting at all.

"I kept telling myself Mr. Carter had authorization," Howard said. "Then I saw the copy of your signature."

"Why help now?"

He looked at my stomach. "My daughter is pregnant too. Yesterday I tried to imagine somebody doing this to her."

Bell set a photograph on the table. A man stood beside Richard at a fundraising dinner, his smile bright under a hotel chandelier.

"Know him?" she asked.

I did. His name was Victor Shaw, a county commissioner who had promised to help Trent expand the family business.

"He came to our house," I said. "A lot."

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Bell tapped the photograph. "Victor Shaw approved the zoning change that made your inherited property far more valuable."

And according to Howard's ledger, he'd received a payment the same day.