Chapter 13 - The Price of Trust
"My lawyer was in this seven years ago?" Lucie asked.
The paper shook in her hands. Mara had told her she was new to the case, recommended by a legal aid charity after Lucie's conviction. Now her name sat beneath a payoff to Thomas.
Valérie examined the line. "Could be forged. Mercer had access to anybody's signature."
"It could also be real."
Raines appeared in the doorway. "You need to leave. Inspection moved up."
Lucie tore three carbon sheets from the binder, then stopped. Removing them might make the evidence harder to authenticate. Rosa had taught her that. She borrowed Raines's departmental camera instead and photographed every page, the cabinet label, the damaged door, and the old inventory seal.
"Keep the originals here," she said. "If they search me, they'll find nothing."
Raines hid the camera in his sealed evidence pouch. Lucie memorized the invoice numbers while they climbed back upstairs.
An hour later, Mara appeared for an unexpected legal visit. She looked exhausted, her hair coming loose from its clip.
"Rachel called," she said. "Nora is safe. But your message about the envelope bothered me."
"What's in it?"
Mara laid the photograph against the glass. It showed Thomas alive in front of a motel after the warehouse fire. A date stamp placed it eight days after his supposed death.
Lucie felt the floor tilt.
"There's also a phone number," Mara said. "A federal investigator picked up. His name is Samuel Keene. He knew Thomas. He says the man who approached Nora was his former partner."
"Why approach a child?"
"He claims he couldn't risk coming to the prison. And he says someone has been reading every message sent to my office."
Lucie pulled a pencil from the visiting-room tray. On her notepad, she wrote: Why is your signature on an old payment to Thomas?
Mara stared at the words. Her face went white.
"That's impossible," she said. "I wasn't a lawyer seven years ago."
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Then she flipped her folder open to show Lucie an employment record.
Seven years earlier, Mara had worked for Vale Transit.
