Chapter 5
Grant’s mind began moving faster than his grief could stop it.
“Why would Patrick hurt Ashley?”
Scott reached into the file and pulled out one final photograph.
“Because she saw something she shouldn’t have.”
The picture showed an old warehouse on the industrial edge of town. The kind of place students loved to photograph for essays about decay and lost industry. Broken windows. Weathered brick. Rusted door.
Through one dirty window, two figures stood near a table.
One was clearly Patrick Kent.
The other man was unfamiliar to Grant, but the stacked packages between them told a quiet, ugly story.
Grant exhaled.
“Illegal narcotics.”
“A lot of them,” Scott said.
Amanda looked sick.
Scott kept his eyes on Grant.
“Patrick’s been on narcotics for five years. I think he’s been taking money from the wrong people for most of that time. Ashley must have taken this during her photo essay. Maybe she showed him. Maybe she asked questions. Maybe she was naïve enough to believe there was a harmless explanation.”
His voice hardened.
“And Patrick decided she was a problem.”
Amanda began crying again, silently this time.
Grant looked at her. This daughter he had never known existed. This living mirror of the girl he had lost. She was grieving a sister she had barely met, and Grant could not decide whether to reach for her or run from the room.
Instead, he looked back at Scott.
“Why are you showing me this?”
Scott did not answer right away.
“Why not arrest him?”
Scott leaned back in his chair.
“Because Patrick isn’t working alone.”
The office felt smaller.
“I’ve been digging since Amanda came to me. There are at least three other cops involved in whatever he’s running. Maybe more. I don’t know who I can trust.”
Grant looked toward the locked door.
Scott followed his gaze.
“That’s why.”
Grant’s hand closed slowly on the armrest.
Scott continued.
“Even if I knew who to trust, the evidence is thin. The photo Ashley took raises questions, but it doesn’t prove what was on that table. The marks can be argued. The phone call can be explained. The gas station footage is circumstantial. A good lawyer would tear this apart before it ever reached trial.”
“So he walks.”
“I didn’t say that.”
Scott leaned forward.
“I said the system might not be enough yet.”
The room fell quiet.
Grant looked at the photographs again. Ashley’s last project. Patrick’s face. The call log. The gas station still. The official papers full of careful words that did not say what everyone in the room now knew.
Grant had spent his life telling other people’s stories.
Now his daughter had become one.
And the man who ended it believed he had edited out the truth.
Grant stood.
“Where does Patrick live?”
Scott watched him.
“Grant.”
“Address.”
Scott pulled a notepad from his drawer and wrote it down.
“If you do something reckless—”
“You showed me evidence,” Grant said. “That’s all that happened here.”
Scott stopped.
Grant took the paper.
“You did your job.”
Then he looked at Amanda.
“She’ll need somewhere safe. If Patrick knows she exists, she’s a threat.”
“She’s staying with me,” Scott said. “I’ll keep her safe.”
Grant nodded.
He reached for the door, then paused.
“The photo Ashley took. Do you have the original file?”
Scott opened a drawer and pulled out a small USB drive.
May you like
“Everything I have is on here. The photo, the reports, bank records that don’t look right, surveillance pieces, witness statements that didn’t make it into official files.”
He held it out.
