The word Dad seemed to stop everything in the room.
Detective Harris held one hand toward me, signaling that I should keep the caller talking, but I could barely concentrate on the receiver. Bentley stood beside the hidden compartment in his bookcase, staring at the telephone with a certainty I had learned not to dismiss.
“What do you want?” I asked.
“The same thing Amber wanted.”
“What’s that?”
“For this to end.”
“You’ve chosen a peculiar way to help.”
The distorted voice gave another quiet laugh.
“I didn’t say I was helping.”
Harris moved closer to the telephone equipment an officer had connected earlier.
Tracing.
Recording.
Trying to turn seconds into evidence.
“You said the Voss file is incomplete,” I continued. “What’s missing?”
“The beginning.”
“What beginning?”
“Ask Amber who taught Travis to hide money.”
The line clicked dead.
Harris swore and immediately radioed the technical team.
Bentley was still staring at the receiver.
“You said you knew him,” I said.
“He called Mom.”
“When?”
“Before Travis came.”
“How long before?”
Bentley thought.
“Maybe a week.”
“What happened?”
“I answered because Mom was giving Maddie a bath.”
“Did he ask for Amber?”
“Yes.”
“What did he say?”
“Just, ‘Put your mother on.’”
“Did you recognize him then?”
“No.”
“What happened when Amber took the phone?”
Bentley’s eyes moved toward Harris.
“She said, ‘Dad, you can’t keep calling here.’”
Carla, who had been standing near the bedroom doorway, slowly sat on the edge of Bentley’s bed.
“Amber told me her father was dead.”
Bentley looked confused.
“She said that?”
“Yes.”
“Maybe she lied.”
Carla rubbed her forehead.
“With Amber lately, that answer applies to too much.”
Harris crouched beside Bentley.
“Did you hear anything else?”
“Mom went outside.”
“You stayed inside?”
“Yes.”
“Could you hear through the window?”
“Some.”
“What?”
Bentley closed his eyes.
“She said, ‘You promised nobody would find us.’”
Harris’s pen stopped.
“Anything else?”
“She said Travis’s name.”
“What exactly?”
“I don’t know.”
“Take your time.”
Bentley pressed both palms against his temples.
Then his eyes opened.
“She said, ‘Travis is asking about you.’”
Nobody spoke.
Amber’s father was not merely an estranged relative who had unexpectedly reappeared.
Travis knew him.
Possibly feared him.
Possibly worked with him.
“Did her father answer?” Harris asked.
“I couldn’t hear.”
“What did Amber say afterward?”
“She said, ‘I’m not doing this again.’”
Again.
One word, and suddenly the history behind everything seemed longer.
Harris called St. Vincent.
Amber was awake.
Her nurse warned that she had undergone another respiratory treatment and could speak only briefly.
When Amber heard that someone had called my landline, she became silent.
“Amber?” I said.
“Did Bentley hear him?”
“He recognized him.”
Another silence.
“Who is he?” Harris asked.
Amber whispered, “My father.”
“Name.”
“Raymond Collins.”
“Alive?”
“Yes.”
Carla closed her eyes.
“You told people he was dead,” I said.
“I needed him to be.”
That answer carried years inside it.
Harris moved directly to what mattered.
“What is Raymond’s connection to Travis Nolan?”
Amber breathed carefully.
“He introduced us.”
Bentley looked at the floor.
“When?” Harris asked.
“I was twenty-three.”
“What did Raymond do?”
“Accounting.”
“For Voss?”
The pause was enough.
“Yes.”
Martinez, listening through Harris’s other phone, swore.
Harris put him on speaker.
“You knew Raymond Collins?”
“No.”
“Think.”
“I knew a Raymond C. in financial compliance records.”
Amber spoke quietly.
“That was him.”
Martinez sounded stunned.
“Ray Collins?”
“Yes.”
“The auditor?”
“He wasn’t an auditor.”
“What was he?”
“My father called himself a consultant.”
“What did he actually do?”
Amber took a breath.
“He fixed books.”
Doug frowned.
“Fixed?”
“Made bad numbers disappear.”
The fraud had not begun with Travis.
Maybe not even with Voss.
Raymond Collins had been inside the financial machinery before Amber married Travis.
“Why did he introduce you to Travis?” I asked.
“He said Travis was ambitious.”
Her laugh was bitter.
“I thought that meant something good.”
“Did Raymond know Travis was involved in Voss’s fraud?”
“Yes.”
“Before you married him?”
“I think so.”
Bentley sat on the bed.
“Mom.”
Amber stopped.
He moved closer to the speaker.
“You said Grandpa died.”
“I know.”
“Why?”
“Because I didn’t want you looking for him.”
“Why?”
“He isn’t safe.”
“Like Travis?”
“Different.”
“How?”
Amber struggled.
“Travis gets angry and hurts people. My father plans.”
Bentley absorbed that.
“And he was watching us?”
“I don’t know.”
“He called Miss Arlene.”
“What?”
“We found another copy.”
Amber’s breathing changed.
“You found the lighthouse?”
“Yes.”
“Oh, baby.”
“The man knew.”
Silence.
“He knew we found it.”
Amber began crying.
That reaction frightened me more than anything she could have said.
“He’s been listening,” Bentley told her.
“I’m sorry.”
“Why does everybody say that after they lie?”
No one interrupted him.
Amber answered eventually.
“Because sometimes people convince themselves a lie buys time.”
“Does it?”
“Not enough.”
Harris returned to Raymond.
“Where does he live?”
“Last I knew? Tennessee.”
“Address?”
Amber gave one.
“Phone?”
“I deleted it.”
“We can recover records.”
“Detective.”
“Yes?”
“If Raymond calls again, don’t believe anything just because it hurts Voss.”
Harris frowned.
“Explain.”
“My father doesn’t expose people because it’s right.”
“Then why?”
“Because when one side is collapsing, he sells the other side the map.”
Martinez made a low sound.
“He’s a broker.”
Amber answered.
“He calls it surviving.”
Harris asked, “Did he help create the fraud structure?”
“Yes.”
“How much does he know?”
“Everything.”
“Then why isn’t he in the notebook?”
“Because Travis never wrote his real name.”
“What did he use?”
Amber hesitated.
“Keeper.”
Bentley’s head lifted.
The lighthouse story.
Keeper.
Harris opened photographs of the black notebook.
Several entries contained a single letter.
K.
Payments.
Dates.
Amounts.
“Is K Raymond?”
“I think so.”
“Think or know?”
“I saw Travis pay him once.”
“When?”
“Five years ago.”
“For what?”
“Making an audit disappear.”
Harris looked at Martinez.
Martinez was already searching his memory.
“We had an audit that vanished.”
“When?”
“Five years ago.”
“Company?”
“Voss Restoration Services.”
Amber whispered, “That was Dad.”
The pieces did not merely connect.
They folded backward through years.
The person who had taught Amber how to recognize manipulated books was the same person who had manipulated them.
Her father had given her the skills that eventually exposed him.
“Why did Raymond call you last week?” Harris asked.
“He wanted the ledger.”
Of course.
“Did you tell him where it was?”
“No.”
“What did he offer?”
“Protection.”
“From Voss?”
“From everybody.”
“And what did he want in return?”
“Every copy.”
Harris shook his head.
“He wants evidence destroyed.”
Amber corrected him.
“No. He wants control of it.”
That distinction mattered.
Evidence destroyed had no value.
Evidence privately held could purchase safety, money, silence, or immunity.
Raymond was not cleaning up the crime.
He was positioning himself above it.
“Why call Arlene now?” Harris asked.
“To scare me.”
“How?”
“He knows she’ll tell me.”
I felt anger rise.
“So I’m a messenger.”
“Yes.”
“Wonderful.”
“Miss Arlene—”
“No. Save your strength.”
Bentley leaned toward the phone.
“Mom?”
“Yes, baby?”
“Did Grandpa know I had the birthday present?”
Amber hesitated.
“No.”
“Did you tell him about the lighthouse?”
“No.”
“Then how did he know we found it?”
Nobody answered.
Because there were only a few possibilities.
Another listening device remained undiscovered.
Someone inside the house had leaked information.
Or Raymond was close enough to watch us in real time.
Harris immediately ordered another sweep.
This time officers did not merely search Amber’s apartment.
They searched mine.
Kitchen.
Bedrooms.
Attic.
Basement.
Exterior.
Doug followed them with growing disbelief.
“Voss’s contractor never entered Ma’s bedroom.”
“Doesn’t matter,” Harris said.
“What are you looking for?”
“Anything transmitting.”
They found nothing for twenty minutes.
Then Officer Reynolds stopped beside my landline.
He lifted the base.
Turned it over.
Removed the battery cover.
A tiny device had been wired inside.
I stared.
“That phone belonged to Ray.”
Doug’s face tightened.
“How long could that have been there?”
The technician examined it.
“Hard to say.”
“Months?”
“Possible.”
“Years?”
“Possible.”
I sat down.
The landline had been in my kitchen for fifteen years.
If the device predated Amber, then this story was older than any of us had realized.
Harris looked at Doug.
“Who serviced this line?”
“Phone company, I guess.”
“When?”
Doug stared at me.
I remembered.
“Last winter.”
“Who came?”
I tried to picture him.
A man in a brown jacket.
Tool bag.
Middle-aged.
Quiet.
He had repaired static on the line.
Or claimed to.
“Do you have paperwork?” Harris asked.
“Maybe.”
Doug searched my desk.
The service receipt was there.
Company name.
Northline Communications.
Martinez stared at it.
“Northline.”
The same root as Mercer’s Northline Protective Services.
Harris immediately checked the business.
Northline Communications had dissolved eighteen months earlier.
The receipt was fake.
The technician had been fake.
Someone had wired my telephone before Amber ever moved into the duplex.
“Why?” Doug whispered.
That question frightened me most.
If Amber had not lived there yet, then she could not have been the original target.
Harris looked at me.
“Mrs. Harper, who lived next door before Amber?”
“An older couple. The Daltons.”
“Any connection to Voss?”
“Not that I know.”
“Before them?”
I thought back.
The duplex had held dozens of lives.
Then I remembered something Ray had once mentioned.
A tenant from years earlier.
Accountant.
Quiet man.
Stayed six months.
Left suddenly.
I stood.
“Ray kept tenant files.”
“Where?”
“Basement.”
Doug and Harris followed me down.
Dust covered the old metal cabinet.
I found the folder.
The tenant’s name was printed across the tab.
RAYMOND COLLINS.
Nobody spoke.
Bentley had followed despite being told to remain upstairs.
He stared at his grandfather’s name.
“Grandpa lived here?”
I opened the lease.
Fourteen years earlier.
Before Amber married Travis.
Before Maddie.
Before any of us knew what was coming.
Raymond Collins had once lived in the apartment where his daughter would eventually hide from the criminal network he helped build.
And beside his emergency contact information was a name I recognized immediately.
FREDERICK VOSS.
Click here to continue reading: PART 14: Raymond’s Old Lease Revealed Why Amber Chose Our Duplex, and Ray Harper Had Left Behind One Warning Nobody Understood Until Now
Every Morning at 7:10, Bentley Knocked on My Door With the Same Polite Request and a Different Excuse
Part 13 of 40
