Chapter 17 - The Old Room
Nadia’s room had been searched, but nothing valuable was missing. The suitcase remained open on the bed. The framed picture of her and the dog had been placed face down.
That detail unsettled her more than the rest.
“They wanted me to know they’d been there,” she said.
The sheriff took statements and photographed the room. Lydia arranged a temporary place for Nadia to stay, but she refused the federal safe house until she had spoken to the investigator handling the case.
“I spent too long being moved around without anyone explaining why,” she told me. “I’ll choose where I sleep.”
We found a small rental cottage near the farm, owned by a retired teacher who had spent years volunteering with our veteran program. Nadia agreed to stay there after the locks were changed and the county deputy added it to his patrol route.
That evening, my father called. He had seen a news alert about an inquiry into Grayline and wanted to know whether he should speak publicly.
“Only if the inspector general asks you to,” I said. “Give them every document you have. Don’t try to manage the story.”
“I won’t.” He paused. “Eleanor wants to speak to Nadia.”
I looked through the kitchen window toward the cottage lights. “Let Nadia decide whether she wants that.”
The next morning, Nadia surprised us by agreeing to meet Eleanor at the farm. She made clear that the conversation would happen in the garden and end the moment she wanted it to.
Eleanor arrived without makeup and without the pearl necklace she once wore to every formal event. She stood at the garden gate, hands clasped, waiting for Nadia to invite her in.
Nadia did not.
“You signed your daughter away once,” Nadia said. “Why should I trust your apology?”
“I didn’t sign the document,” Eleanor answered. “But I knew Arthur had. I chose not to ask what it meant.”
“That helped the people who did this.”
“Yes.” Eleanor swallowed. “I can’t undo that. I can only tell the truth about what I knew.”
She described the night Arthur received the file. Sloane had called the apartment, insisting the matter was urgent. Eleanor remembered Arthur pacing for an hour before signing. She also remembered him saying that the woman in the report was “already gone.”
“Did you know I was alive?” Nadia asked.
“No,” Eleanor said. “But I didn’t ask enough questions to be certain.”
Nadia’s face stayed guarded. “That’s the first honest answer you’ve given me.”
Eleanor nodded, accepting the judgment.
Later, Lydia called with a new development. The audio recording had a second speaker, faint beneath the noise. A technician had isolated the words, but the sound needed further confirmation.
The second voice said: The ledger stays with the woman.
“What ledger?” Ethan asked.
Nadia went completely still. “I never had a ledger.”
“Could Sloane have meant a list?” I asked.
She shook her head. “No. I think he meant a person. There was a nurse who helped move me after the hospital. Her name was Ruth Calder. She told me to keep a journal of every person who handled my paperwork.”
“You still have it?”
“I left it in a bank box in Cumberland.”
We drove there the next day with the investigator. The box was empty. The bank records showed that someone had accessed it two weeks earlier using an authorization card Nadia had never issued.
May you like
As we stepped outside, a woman waiting by the curb looked directly at Nadia.
Then she raised one hand and called, “Nadia Bell?”
