Chapter 5 - THE SISTER'S EVIDENCE
I brought Hannah inside, giving her a cup of warm tea while she sat huddled in a blanket on the sofa. Colonel Whitmore and Sergeant Miller stood near the kitchen counter, giving us space.
Hannah wiped her eyes, her breathing finally slowing down. "Mom took my phone after you left today. She locked herself in her bedroom and was screaming at Mayor Mercer on the phone. She said if Mercer didn't get Dad out of jail by tonight, she was going to tell the federal agents about 'the vault.'"
I sat down beside her. "The vault? What vault, Hannah?"
Hannah reached for the leather-bound sketchbook she had dropped on the porch and opened it to the back pages. Instead of drawings, the inner lining had been carefully cut away, revealing a thumb drive taped to the cardboard backing.
"When you left four years ago," Hannah explained, her voice trembling, "Dad was drinking heavily. One night, he thought I was asleep, and he brought a metal lockbox home from the office. He hid it in the small crawlspace behind the water heater in the basement."
"Did you look inside?" I asked.
"Two years ago, when I was cleaning out old boxes, I found it," Hannah confessed. "I used Dad's spare key. Inside were paper ledgers, bank tokens, and this thumb drive. I copied everything onto my laptop because... because I noticed your name was written on all the ledger covers."
Colonel Whitmore stepped forward, his expression sharp and intense. "Hannah, did you say ledgers with Rebecca's forged signature?"
Hannah nodded, pulling the thumb drive from the book and handing it to Whitmore. "Dad kept a second set of books. He recorded every single meeting he had with Mayor Mercer and Daniel. Every bribe, every forged signature, every wire transfer. He wrote down dates, times, and amounts because he was terrified Mercer would betray him."
Miller let out a low whistle. "An insurance policy against the Mayor."
"Your father was smart enough to keep evidence," Whitmore said, inserting the thumb drive into his military terminal. "He knew Mercer was using him, so he created a dossier to protect himself. But instead of using it to clear his name, he kept quiet and let Rebecca take the blame."
"Because Mercer threatened him," Hannah said softly, looking at me with deep sorrow. "I heard Dad crying in the kitchen last year. Mercer told Dad that if anyone ever investigated the company, they would make sure the police focused entirely on Rebecca. They knew you were in the military, and they thought if you were deployed overseas, you wouldn't be able to defend yourself in a local court."
I squeezed Hannah's hand, feeling an icy, white-hot fury settle deep in my bones. They hadn't just tried to erase me. They had used my service to my country as cover to turn me into their ultimate scapegoat.
"Colonel," I said, standing up and looking at Whitmore. "What's on that drive?"
May you like
Whitmore stared at the monitor, his eyes scanning lines of encrypted spreadsheets and scanned bank receipts. A grim, victorious smile slowly spread across his face.
"On this drive, Sergeant Cole," Whitmore announced, "is enough evidence to put Mayor Mercer, his son Daniel, and the entire corrupt city leadership of Cedar Ridge behind federal bars for the next twenty years."
