He slammed the door harder than necessary and drove away. That night I sat at my kitchen table staring at the bank receipt that confirmed my latest January transfer.
Forty thousand dollars. Every year. My hands rested on the table while Ava’s whisper echoed again in my mind. Just watch him. And now I had.
After the warehouse and the recordings were handed to the police, things moved faster than I expected. Detective Nolan called me two days later and asked me to come to the station. When I arrived, he placed a folder on the table and said quietly, “You were right to follow him.”
Inside were photos of the warehouse room, the cameras, the fake urn that had once sat on my mantel, and bank records showing the money I had been wiring every January. My stomach turned when I realized how carefully Calvin had built the lie.
The arrest happened that same week.
I did not watch it, but Nolan told me Calvin tried to act calm when they read the charges. Fraud. Kidnapping. Extortion. The list was long enough that even his lawyer stopped pretending it would go away.
The trial ended months later.