Chapter 8 - Lockbox 214
Addie shoved Owen behind a row of washers while I called 911. I could see two figures in the SUV, but neither got out. Maybe they wanted us to panic. Maybe they wanted us to run into the street.
"Stay inside," I said.
Owen looked at my crutches. "You can't fight them."
"I don't plan to."
We moved into the manager's locked office after he waved us in. A patrol car arrived three minutes later. The SUV was gone before its headlights reached the parking lot.
Major Bell met us at the police station. Owen told her his story from the beginning, with an attorney present. He cried halfway through Liam's final minutes. Nobody told him to toughen up.
When he mentioned Lockbox 214, Bell shook her head. "No one touches it without a warrant and a documented transfer. We are not giving a defense attorney an easy way to throw this away."
The warrant came by morning. The bus-station manager opened the locker on camera, with investigators present.
Inside was a battered lunch tin containing a memory card, a folded shipping label, and Liam's cheap silver wristwatch. The hands had stopped at 4:43.
Bell looked at me before taking the watch. "You can request it after the evidence process."
"I know." I hated that I knew.
At the lab, the card opened only after a technician recovered its damaged index. A video appeared, recorded inside a dim cargo container. Northline crates filled the screen. Liam's voice whispered, "All these boxes are supposed to be at the Darrah clinic. Look at the new labels."
He turned the camera toward a manifest taped to a crate. Across the page were dollar amounts and account numbers. Beneath the totals, two signatures appeared: Calvin Shaw and Colonel Warren Price.
Then another voice spoke from behind Liam: "You shouldn't have filmed that, Corporal."
The camera swung around. Standing in the doorway was someone I knew very well.
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It wasn't Price. It wasn't Shaw.
It was Major Alicia Bell.
