Chapter 6: What Garrett Did Next
He didn't go back to the estate.
That was the first thing that told her something had changed.
Hatch had filed the paperwork by nine that morning.
By eleven, a duty supervisor had informed her that her release was being processed.
By one in the afternoon, she was standing outside the facility with her bag returned to her, her phone charged to four percent, and Leonard Hatch beside her on the pavement.
"He's moving," Hatch said.
He was looking at his own phone.
"Garrett filed a counter-motion two hours ago.
He's claiming you removed proprietary documents from a private residence."
"The photos I took are on a personal device.
I didn't remove anything physical."
"He knows that.
The motion isn't designed to succeed.
It's designed to create delay and noise." He put his phone away.
"It also tells us something useful."
"That they're scared."
"That they're scared and they're working quickly." He flagged a car at the kerb.
"Which means we need to work faster."
She got in.
He followed.
"The email account," he said, as the car pulled away.
"I need you to access it from a clean device.
Not your phone.
Not anything that has ever been connected to the Callahan estate network."
"There's an internet café on Mercer Street.
I used it once before I started working for them."
"Good.
That's our first stop." He looked out the window.
"After that, I need you to write down everything you remember about the letter.
Word for word, as close as you can get.
The exact phrasing matters."
"Why?"
"Because Ruth Callahan's estate attorney is still practising.
I spoke to him this morning." He paused.
"He told me that when the estate was settled, he was presented with a document stating that Ruth had no surviving dependants.
He signed off on it.
He has regretted it ever since, because three months after the settlement closed, he received an anonymous letter telling him that wasn't true."
Claire looked at him.
"What did he do with the letter?"
"He kept it." Hatch's voice was quiet.
"He kept it for six years and told himself it wasn't his place to act on it.
He told me this morning that if someone could show him proof — real proof — he would testify to everything he knew."
The car stopped at a red light.
"Garrett knows about him," Claire said.
It wasn't a question.
"Almost certainly."
"Then he'll try to reach him first."
"He'll try." Hatch turned to look at her directly.
"Which is why you are going to access that email account in the next thirty minutes, and I am going to be on the phone with that attorney for every minute until we have his statement in writing."
She nodded.
Then her phone buzzed.
Four percent battery.
One notification.
A message from a number she didn't recognise.
She opened it.
*She's asking for you.
They moved her this morning.
I don't know where.
— M*
Her hand tightened around the phone.
"They moved Nora," she said.
Hatch went still.
"Where?"
"I don't know.
Someone with the initial M sent this.
I don't know who that is."
He was already dialling.
He held the phone to his ear, his jaw set.
"Then we don't have until this afternoon," he said.
"We have until whenever Garrett decides that Nora is more useful to him somewhere the court can't easily reach."
The car accelerated.
She stared at the message.
*She's asking for you.*
Seven years old.
Moved without warning to somewhere unknown.
Asking for the one person the Callahans had just had arrested.
Claire pressed her phone against her palm and looked out the window at the city moving past.
May you like
She had told herself, in the east kitchen on all those quiet mornings, that she was just being kind.
She understood now that she had been the only plan Nora had.
