Chapter 3

The next afternoon, I finally listened to the full voicemail.

I sat in my car outside the dispatch center with the cracked phone plugged into a portable speaker. The file was almost four minutes long. Drew’s breathing was wet and labored. Metal groaned somewhere behind him.

“Sean, you took the money,” he said. “I know you did. But you don’t understand. I was going to put it back. I swear. Rawlings knows about the ledger. He’s coming. He said he’d burn the gear records. If I don’t make it, don’t let him pin this on you. I’m sorry. Tell Nora I’m sorry. Tell Micah-”

A door slammed. Drew stopped breathing into the phone. Then a voice I knew from every department ceremony said, “You should’ve kept your mouth shut, Drew.”

Rawlings.

The recording cut off.

I played it again. Then again. By the third time, I was shaking so hard I had to pull my knees to my chest. Drew had stolen. Drew had tried to fix it. Rawlings had come to the warehouse. Sean had hidden the phone because he didn’t want me to know any of it.

That evening, Tuck came over with a six-pack and worry lines deepening his face. He was a retired firefighter who had worked with Drew. He listened to the recording and went gray.

“Drop it, Nora,” he said. “Rawlings is chief. He has friends in the state marshal’s office. You go after him with this and you’ll lose your job, your house, maybe Micah.”

“I can’t drop it.”

“Then don’t do it stupid.” He glanced at Micah’s bedroom door. “And don’t do it alone.”

That night, someone broke into my car. The window was smashed, the glove box emptied. The phone was gone from the flour canister, too-I had brought it inside, but I hadn’t hidden it well enough. My kitchen drawer hung open. The plastic bag was on the floor.

I woke Micah, panicked. “The phone. Did you see anyone?”

He sat up, calm in a way that scared me. “I copied the file,” he whispered. “To my tablet. I did it before I played it at the ceremony.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

His eyes filled. “Because I thought you’d give it back to Uncle Sean.”