Chapter 17 - The Burner Phone
Gregory claimed Colin had taken the phone without permission.
Detective Bell did not arrest him.
That frustrated Nicole more than she expected.
“Why not?” she asked Margaret.
“Because possession of a secret phone is not proof of conspiracy.”
“But the messages.”
“Investigators need to recover them.”
“And if Colin destroyed them?”
“Then they build the case another way.”
Nicole hated process.
Process was slow.
Secrets were fast.
The burner phone changed that.
A forensic extraction recovered hundreds of deleted messages.
Most were mundane.
Security schedules.
Vendor names.
Property access.
But a sequence from the week before the fire caught investigators’ attention.
Gregory:
RAYMOND HIRED SOMEONE.
Colin:
I KNOW.
Gregory:
GET THE FILES.
Colin:
WHAT IF HE WON’T GIVE THEM UP?
Gregory:
MAKE HIM UNDERSTAND WHAT’S AT STAKE.
Later:
Colin:
HE’S MEETING THE INVESTIGATOR TUESDAY.
Gregory:
WHERE?
Then an address.
Warehouse Fourteen.
And finally, forty minutes before the fire:
Gregory:
END THIS TONIGHT.
Nothing after that.
Nicole stared at the printed messages in Daniel Shaw’s office.
Raymond sat across from her.
“You see it.”
“I see words.”
“He sent Colin there.”
“Yes.”
“To stop me.”
“Yes.”
“And Elias died.”
“Yes.”
Raymond slammed his palm against the table.
“How much more do they need?”
Daniel remained calm.
“For murder? More.”
Raymond laughed bitterly.
“Wonderful system.”
“The same system preventing them from arresting you based only on Gregory’s accusation.”
That silenced him.
Nicole looked at the final message.
END THIS TONIGHT.
She imagined Gregory typing it.
Maybe angry.
Maybe desperate.
Maybe fully aware of what Colin might do.
The uncertainty was unbearable.
Emma’s forensic interview occurred the next day.
Nicole watched behind one-way glass with her attorney.
A trained child interviewer sat with Emma in a room containing crayons and soft chairs.
Nobody told Emma what to say.
Nobody mentioned crimes.
The interviewer began with school.
Pets.
Favorite foods.
Then moved gradually to the funeral.
“Tell me what you remember.”
Emma described the flowers.
The casket.
Nicole’s black dress.
“Then I saw the wrong man.”
“What made you think he was wrong?”
“His face.”
“What about his face?”
“Uncle Raymond has a line.”
She touched her cheek.
“Did anyone tell you to say that?”
“No.”
“Did you see Uncle Raymond another time?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“The day before the funeral.”
“Tell me everything about that.”
Emma described Nicole’s car.
Raymond sitting in front.
His dirty gray shirt.
His scar.
His voice.
Then came the sentence.
“He told Mommy, ‘Don’t tell Gregory I’m alive.’”
The interviewer did not react.
Nicole did.
She covered her mouth.
Emma continued.
“Mommy thought I was sleeping.”
“Were you?”
“No.”
“Why did you pretend?”
“Because grown-ups tell better secrets when they think kids are sleeping.”
Behind the glass, Margaret almost smiled.
Nicole could not.
The interviewer asked whether Raymond gave Emma anything.
“A shiny button.”
“A button?”
“For his shirt.”
“A cufflink?”
“Yes.”
“Where is it?”
“Mommy has it.”
Everything matched.
Nicole’s lies.
Raymond’s survival.
The timing.
But not Gregory’s crime.
Emma could place Raymond alive.
She could not say who started the fire.
When the interview ended, Emma ran into Nicole’s arms.
“Did I do it right?”
The question broke Nicole.
“There wasn’t a right answer.”
“Yes there was.”
Emma frowned.
“You said tell the truth.”
Nicole knelt.
“You’re right. That is the right answer.”
That evening Raymond watched a recording of his own police interview.
At one point Bell had asked:
Did Elias have enemies?
Raymond had answered no.
Now something bothered him.
He called Clara.
She almost did not answer.
“What?”
“Did Elias ever mention Colin Sykes?”
Silence.
Then Clara said, “Not that name.”
“Another?”
“He told me someone from his old police department kept showing up in his investigation.”
Raymond’s pulse quickened.
“Who?”
“I don’t know.”
“What did he say?”
“He said, ‘Some cops retire. Some just change who pays them.’”
Colin had been a police officer.
Raymond called Bell.
By midnight investigators had Colin’s old personnel file.
He had served twelve years in the same county financial-crimes unit where Elias once worked.
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And fifteen years earlier, Elias Vance had filed an internal complaint accusing Colin Sykes of leaking confidential information to a wealthy local businessman.
The businessman’s name was Charles Archer.
