Chapter 5 - The Marriage File
The email was sent to an account called HVOSS17.
Dana stared at it.
“Voss.”
“Caleb Voss?”
“Maybe.”
“He disappeared fifteen years ago.”
“People disappear. Accounts don’t always.”
Lily woke while we were still working.
I turned the screen toward her.
She read the email.
Then the next.
Richard had sent background reports.
She stopped breathing for a second.
“He said we met by accident.”
“I know.”
“At the bookstore.”
“I know.”
“He bumped into me and dropped coffee.”
Dana said softly, “It may have been staged.”
Lily stood too quickly.
I caught her.
She pulled away.
“Don’t.”
I let go.
She paced once, hand pressed to her ribs.
“He knew what books I read. He knew I hated crowded bars. He knew Mom died. He knew everything.”
Dana opened another recovered file.
A private investigator had billed Whitmore Holdings for “Ward descendant observation.”
The first invoice was dated three years before Lily met Richard.
Then came the trust documents.
Richard wanted Lily to sign management control of North Ridge to a Whitmore subsidiary.
“Underground,” Lily said.
I remembered Ashbridge maps.
There had been rumors about sealed tunnels beneath an abandoned industrial corridor.
Old Cold War storage.
Later used for cash, documents, maybe weapons.
We never found them.
North Ridge bordered the site.
Dana searched the old case index.
One note appeared.
VOSS: PHYSICAL LEDGER MOVED TO NR-7.
NR.
North Ridge.
Lily looked at me.
“Mom’s land has the ledger?”
“Maybe.”
“Then Richard didn’t marry me for money.”
“No.”
“He married me for whatever your witness hid.”
The satellite phone rang.
Dana answered.
Her face changed.
“What?”
She put it on speaker.
A federal analyst said, “We traced HVOSS17.”
I stood.
“Who owns it?”
The analyst hesitated.
“Caleb Voss.”
May you like
Lily whispered, “He’s alive?”
The analyst answered, “He logged in from Bellhaven forty minutes ago.”
