Chapter 3 - The Woman in the Photograph
We left the hotel through the service entrance.
Lena insisted.
Two plainclothes officers escorted Emily to a secure location while I was ordered to report to the Attorney General’s Office.
Ordered.
Not invited.
That distinction mattered.
Deputy Attorney General Martin Shaw was waiting in Conference Room Six when I arrived.
So was Internal Security.
My laptop sat on the table inside an evidence bag.
“Sit down, Daniel.”
I remained standing.
“Someone compromised my credentials.”
“That’s one possibility.”
“What’s the other?”
Shaw leaned back.
“That you accessed a sealed investigative file involving your new wife’s stepfather.”
I laughed once.
There was nothing funny about it.
“You think I spent my wedding night hacking my own office?”
“I think we establish facts before conclusions.”
They showed me the access log.
My credentials.
My authentication token.
My workstation ID.
4:03 a.m.
Whoever had done it had not merely stolen a password.
They had replicated my digital identity.
“What did they access?”
Shaw slid a paper across the table.
Caldwell Development Holdings had appeared in an abandoned financial inquiry nine years earlier.
Suspected mortgage fraud.
Insurance irregularities.
Unexplained transfers.
Nothing prosecuted.
One name appeared repeatedly in the notes.
Margaret Voss.
“Who is she?”
“Former accountant for Caldwell,” Shaw said. “Disappeared before investigators could interview her.”
“Disappeared?”
“Quit her job. Closed her apartment. Never responded again.”
I stared at the file.
“Was she reported missing?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“She was thirty-seven and apparently left voluntarily.”
Something about the wording bothered me.
“Apparently?”
Shaw folded his hands.
“Daniel, you are formally recused from anything involving Caldwell.”
“I understand.”
“You cannot access evidence.”
“I understand.”
“You cannot direct investigators.”
“I understand.”
“And you absolutely cannot use this office to conduct a personal vendetta.”
That angered me.
“My wife told me she was abused for years.”
“I’m not questioning her.”
“It sounded like you were questioning me.”
“I’m protecting the case.”
He was right.
I hated that he was right.
So I surrendered my access badge.
For the first time in twelve years, I walked out of the Attorney General’s Office without the ability to enter again.
Emily was waiting at Lena’s apartment.
When I arrived, she was sitting at the kitchen table staring at the old photograph from the envelope.
“I remembered something,” she said.
She pointed to the edge of the image.
A woman stood far in the background beside the lake house.
Blond hair.
Red jacket.
Barely visible.
“Margaret Voss,” Emily whispered.
I looked at her.
“You knew her?”
“She handled Richard’s books.”
“Why didn’t you mention her?”
“Because I haven’t thought about her in years.”
Emily touched the photograph.
“She was kind to me.”
“How kind?”
“The kind of adult who noticed things.”
My chest tightened.
Emily continued.
“One summer she saw bruises on my wrist. She asked if I was safe.”
“What did you tell her?”
“That I fell.”
“Did she believe you?”
“No.”
“What happened afterward?”
“Richard fired her.”
“When?”
Emily stared at the photograph.
“The week before the lake house burned.”
Lena entered the kitchen carrying three coffees.
She stopped when she heard that.
“Say that again.”
Emily did.
Lena placed the coffees down.
“Do you remember where Margaret lived?”
“No.”
“Family?”
“A sister, maybe.”
Lena took the photograph.
“We’ll find her.”
Three hours later, she did.
Margaret Voss had not disappeared.
She had changed her name.
Margaret Voss was now Margaret Hale, living outside Albany and working as a bookkeeper for a dental practice.
Lena contacted her through local authorities.
Margaret initially refused to speak.
Then Lena sent one sentence.
Emily Caldwell is ready to tell the truth.
Margaret called within eleven minutes.
Emily put the phone on speaker.
For several seconds, nobody spoke.
Then a woman’s voice said, “Emily?”
Emily covered her mouth.
“Margaret?”
“Oh, honey.”
Emily began crying.
So did Margaret.
“I’m sorry,” Margaret said. “I’m so sorry.”
“For what?”
“I should have gone to the police.”
Emily closed her eyes.
“You knew?”
“I suspected. Then I found something.”
“What?”
“Richard kept recordings.”
The room went still.
“What kind of recordings?” Lena asked.
Margaret hesitated.
“Everything.”
My skin went cold.
“He recorded meetings. Employees. Business partners. His wife. Anyone he thought might someday become a problem.”
“Why?”
“Insurance.”
“Blackmail,” Lena corrected.
“Yes.”
“Where are the recordings?”
“I don’t know anymore.”
Emily whispered, “Did he record me?”
Margaret began crying harder.
“I found one tape with your name on it.”
Nobody moved.
“What was on it?” Emily asked.
“I never listened to all of it. I heard Richard threatening you. You were crying. I copied it.”
“Where is the copy?”
“I hid it.”
“Where?”
Margaret took a shaky breath.
“The lake house.”
Emily stared at the photograph.
“But it burned.”
“Yes.”
“So it’s gone.”
“No.”
Margaret’s next words changed everything.
“The house burned because Richard discovered I’d hidden evidence there. But he never found where.”
Lena leaned closer to the phone.
“Margaret, where did you hide it?”
“In the old stone well behind the property. There was a waterproof survey box beneath the false bottom.”
Emily stood so suddenly the chair scraped backward.
I caught her hand.
Lena was already calling someone.
Then Margaret said, “Wait.”
Everyone stopped.
“There’s something else Emily needs to know.”
Emily slowly returned to the phone.
“What?”
“Richard wasn’t the only person I was trying to expose.”
Margaret’s voice became barely audible.
May you like
“Your mother helped him hide the money.”
Emily’s fingers slipped out of mine.
