Chapter 2 - THE BLUE FLASH DRIVE
The ambulance doors closed with Claire inside.
Ethan sat beside her while two paramedics monitored her breathing.
Police vehicles surrounded the memorial hall.
Guests stood outside beneath the gray morning sky, whispering in disbelief.
Nobody was talking about funeral flowers anymore.
Nobody was talking about condolences.
They were talking about attempted murder.
Ethan held Claire’s hand.
Her fingers were cold.
“Mom, what’s on the flash drive?”
Claire stared at the ceiling.
“Evidence.”
“Of what?”
She hesitated.
“Richard has been stealing money.”
Ethan frowned.
“From you?”
“From a lot of people.”
She turned her head toward him.
“And I think some of those people are dangerous.”
Ethan remembered the expensive cars that sometimes appeared outside their house late at night.
He remembered Richard taking phone calls behind closed doors.
He remembered arguments that stopped whenever Ethan entered a room.
Until that moment, those memories had seemed ordinary.
Now they felt different.
“How did you find out?”
Claire took a careful breath.
“Three weeks ago, I was looking for an old insurance document in Richard’s office.”
She swallowed.
“I found a second laptop hidden behind a false panel in his desk.”
Ethan stared at her.
“There were accounts, transfers, property records, and copies of signatures.”
“Your signature?”
“Mine.”
Her voice sharpened.
“And signatures belonging to people I had never met.”
Claire had spent most of her career as an accountant.
Numbers made sense to her.
Patterns made sense to her.
And what she found inside Richard’s hidden computer was not random.
Money was moving through shell companies.
Properties were being purchased under false identities.
Insurance policies were being altered.
Trust accounts were being drained.
And several names appeared beside the same disturbing notation.
CLOSED.
Ethan looked confused.
“What does closed mean?”
Claire’s expression changed.
“I still don’t know.”
The ambulance turned sharply.
“But I found my own name on the list.”
Ethan stopped breathing for a moment.
Claire continued.
“Beside my name was tomorrow’s date.”
“The funeral.”
“Yes.”
He squeezed her hand harder.
“You knew?”
“I knew something was going to happen.”
“Why didn’t you call the police?”
“I tried.”
Claire’s eyes filled with frustration.
“The first officer I spoke to said financial irregularities weren’t enough to prove immediate danger.”
She looked away.
“And when I tried contacting a federal investigator Richard once complained about, somebody entered our house that same night.”
Ethan remembered.
The broken kitchen window.
Richard had told him it was probably teenagers.
Claire had said nothing.
“I copied everything from the laptop onto the blue drive.”
“Why my music box?”
“Because Richard never touches anything that reminds him of your father.”
Ethan went still.
His biological father, Daniel Parker, had died when Ethan was six.
Richard had married Claire two years later.
For four years, Richard had acted like a patient stepfather.
He attended baseball games.
He helped with homework.
He bought Christmas presents.
He told Ethan that family was about who stayed.
Now Ethan wondered whether any of it had been real.
The ambulance arrived at the hospital.
Doctors rushed Claire through emergency intake.
Before nurses took her away, she pulled Ethan close.
“Listen carefully.”
He nodded.
“Do not go home alone.”
“I won’t.”
“Do not trust anyone who says Richard asked them to help us.”
Ethan nodded again.
“And Ethan?”
“Yes?”
Claire touched his cheek.
“If the music box is gone, do not search for the drive.”
“Why?”
“Because it means somebody got there first.”
The doors opened.
Claire disappeared into the emergency department.
Detective Elena Ramirez approached Ethan in the hallway twenty minutes later.
She was in her early forties, calm-eyed and direct.
“Your mother told us about the flash drive.”
Ethan nodded.
“We’re going to retrieve it.”
“I’m coming.”
“No.”
“It’s my room.”
“It’s also potentially a crime scene.”
Ethan folded his arms.
“I know where the box is.”
Ramirez studied him.
Finally, she sighed.
“You stay behind me at all times.”
Two patrol cars escorted them back to the Parker house.
The front door was locked.
Nothing looked disturbed.
Ramirez entered first.
Two officers followed.
Ethan walked upstairs.
His bedroom door was open.
That immediately felt wrong.
He never left it open.
He stepped inside.
His shelves had been searched.
Desk drawers were hanging open.
His mattress had been lifted.
And on the floor beneath the window lay the broken remains of his wooden music box.
Ethan stared at the pieces.
Ramirez crouched beside them.
“The drive?”
Ethan checked the secret compartment.
Empty.
Someone had already taken it.
Then one of the officers called from downstairs.
“Detective.”
Ramirez hurried out.
Ethan followed.
An officer stood beside the back door.
The lock had been forced.
On the kitchen counter sat a single photograph.
It showed Claire asleep in a hospital bed.
The picture had been taken less than an hour earlier.
May you like
Written across the bottom in black marker were six words.
YOU SHOULD HAVE LEFT HER BURIED.
