Chapter 6
“In case you need it.”
Grant took it and slipped it into his coat pocket.
For a moment, he looked at Amanda.
She looked back at him with Ashley’s eyes.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
Amanda’s face crumpled.
“I’m sorry you lost her,” Grant continued. “And I’m sorry for what comes next.”
Then he left.
Grant did not go home.
Home was full of Ashley. Her running shoes by the back door. Her photography books on the coffee table. The cereal she liked still in the pantry. A half-finished roll of film on her desk.
He drove instead to a storage unit on the edge of town, past the Walmart, past the closed tire shop, to a row of metal doors under cold security lights.
He had kept the unit since his documentary days.
Inside were boxes labeled in black marker. Cameras. Tripods. Field recorders. Old hard drives. Press credentials from countries he no longer visited. Protective gear from dangerous assignments. Not souvenirs, exactly. More like proof that another version of him had existed before fatherhood taught him to choose safety.
A journalist in unstable places learned to protect himself.
He opened a locked case, looked inside, and stood very still.
Then he closed it again.
Not yet.
Information first.
Always information.
Grant set up his laptop on a folding table, plugged in an old lamp, and loaded the USB drive Scott had given him.
For the next three hours, he read.
Bank records showing deposits Patrick could not explain. Surveillance clips from different corners of town. Notes about suspected routes. Names that appeared too often near seized evidence and vanished inventory. Witness statements that had been softened, misplaced, or never properly entered.
Patrick Kent sat at the center of it all.
But Scott had been right.
It was not enough.
It was smoke.
Patterns.
Pressure.
Suggestions.
Not the kind of clean proof that survived in a courtroom where every word had to stand while men in expensive suits tried to cut it apart.
Ashley’s warehouse photograph was the strongest piece, and even that showed only part of the truth.
Grant leaned back as dawn began lightening the cracks around the storage unit door.
The legal system had not failed yet.
But it was already limping.
He opened a blank document.
Locations.
Times.
Names.
Habits.
Vehicles.
Known associates.
Patrick’s schedule.
Patrick’s routes.
Patrick’s preferred bar.
Patrick’s gym.
The people Scott suspected.
The people Scott feared.
Everything Ashley had touched. Everything Patrick had tried to bury. Everything Grant could verify without tipping his hand.
By midnight, he had the skeleton of a plan.
By three in the morning, he had the shape of it.
By dawn, he knew the first step.
Confirmation.
Not suspicion.
May you like
Not grief speaking through rage.
Proof.
