By morning, Morales had collected the temporary phone.
He replaced it again.
Anna watched him seal the first one inside an evidence bag.
“You're running out of numbers for me.”
“That isn't the problem.”
“What is?”
“That someone obtained a number issued less than four hours before they contacted you.”
Clare stopped stirring powdered creamer into her coffee.
“How?”
Morales looked tired.
“We're investigating.”
Anna was learning that investigators used certain phrases when the honest answer was frightening.
She did not push.
Instead, she showed him the wedding photograph.
Morales stared at it longer than she expected.
“Is this publicly available?”
“It was online once.”
“Where?”
“Our wedding website. Social media. Family albums.”
“Then the image itself isn't necessarily significant.”
“The message is.”
“Yes.”
Laura asked questions too.
Anna repeated the sentence silently.
“What questions?”
Morales packed the device away.
“We're trying to find that out.”
He had already requested Laura Reynolds's case file.
The death had occurred in another county, which slowed everything.
What they knew was limited.
Laura was thirty-four.
Divorced.
No children.
Employed as a financial analyst.
No documented history of drug dependency.
Found dead in her apartment on a Monday morning after failing to appear at work.
An open medication bottle had been beside her bed.
The medical examiner ruled accidental overdose.
Anna asked the obvious question.
“Did the medication belong to her?”
Morales hesitated.
“The prescription did.”
That answer stayed with Anna.
Clare caught it too.
“Was the amount consistent with the prescription?”
“We don't have the toxicology details yet.”
“When will you?”
“Soon.”
He turned toward Anna.
“I need to ask about Dererick's work history.”
Anna gave everything she knew.
Consulting projects.
Corporate clients.
Temporary assignments.
Periods when he traveled.
She had never completely understood what he did because his explanations tended toward vague language about process analysis, compliance, operational systems.
Now that vagueness looked intentional.
Morales wrote down company names.
“What about medical training?”
“None.”
“Laboratory experience?”
“Not that I know.”
“Friends who work in medicine?”
Anna looked toward Clare.
Clare was the obvious connection.
But another memory surfaced.
“There was someone named Stephen.”
Morales's pen stopped.
“Last name?”
“I don't remember.”
“How did Dererick know him?”
“College, maybe. Or work.”
“What did he do?”
Anna closed her eyes.
A dinner years earlier.
Dererick laughing with a thin man whose sleeves were rolled neatly to his elbows.
Talk about research.
Hospitals.
Clinical trials.
“Pharmaceutical research.”
Morales exchanged a glance with another investigator seated near the door.
“When did you last see Stephen?”
“Years ago.”
“What did he look like?”
Anna described him.
Tall.
Narrow face.
Dark hair.
A scar?
She sat straighter.
“Wait.”
Clare understood.
“The hotel man?”
“I don't know.”
Anna tried to recall the dinner.
Stephen had worn his collar open.
Had there been a scar near his ear?
The memory would not sharpen.
Morales showed her the frozen hotel image.
Anna stared.
“Maybe.”
“That isn't identification.”
“I know.”
“Good.”
The word held approval, not criticism.
Morales wanted accuracy.
Anna was grateful.
By afternoon, Laura's toxicology report arrived.
Morales did not immediately share every detail, but he told Anna enough.
The substance in Laura's blood matched the drug class suggested by some of Dererick's records.
Not proof of murder.
But no longer a coincidence investigators were willing to ignore.
Then came another development.
Laura had made a police report six weeks before her death.
Anna felt her stomach knot.
“What did she report?”
“Someone entering her apartment.”
“Was anything stolen?”
“No.”
Clare set down her coffee.
“Did she think she was being watched?”
Morales nodded.
“She reported objects being moved. She found a camera once.”
Anna stood so quickly the chair scraped backward.
“What happened?”
“The responding officer documented it. Laura couldn't identify who installed it. The device contained no usable fingerprints. She later withdrew her complaint.”
“Why?”
Morales turned a page.
“She said she'd made a mistake.”
Anna laughed without humor.
“She didn't.”
“No.”
“She was scared.”
“Possibly.”
“Or someone convinced her she imagined it.”
Morales did not disagree.
The police report included one more detail.
Laura had told a friend she was keeping records somewhere outside her apartment.
The friend never found them.
Anna looked at the copied notebook pages.
“Dererick wrote about her.”
Morales nodded.
“So maybe she wrote about him.”
Laura's surviving relatives provided access to several personal belongings kept in storage.
Morales arranged for local investigators to search them.
It could take days.
Anna hated that.
Every hour felt like an opportunity for Dererick and whoever assisted him to erase something.
She told Morales so.
“He may already be doing that.”
“Then why aren't you arresting him?”
“On what charge today?”
Anna's anger rose.
“You have photographs.”
“Possession of photographs is not automatically enough to establish how they were obtained.”
“The drugs.”
“We need to connect him to administering them.”
“The notebook.”
“Important evidence. Still requires authentication and context.”
Anna stared at him.
“So he walks around free.”
“For the moment.”
Morales leaned forward.
“If I move too early with a weak charge and expose what we know, we may lose the chance to identify everyone involved.”
Anna knew he was right.
She hated him for being right anyway.
That evening, Maria visited the safe apartment.
She brought clean clothes and a bag of groceries.
The normal objects almost made Anna cry.
Bread.
Fruit.
Toothpaste.
A toothbrush still in plastic.
Clare put everything away while Maria sat with Anna.
“You aren't required to be composed.”
“I don't feel composed.”
“You're acting as though you are.”
Anna looked at her hands.
“What happens if the police can't prove enough?”
“Then we build other protections. Orders. Housing. Legal steps.”
“He knows everything about me.”
“He knew your old routines.”
Anna looked up.
Maria continued.
“Those aren't the same thing.”
It was a small distinction.
But useful.
Anna was not obligated to remain predictable.
Later that night, Clare finally slept.
Anna could not.
She sat at the kitchen table reading the list of initials she had copied from Dererick's notebook.
L.R.
M.T.
S.H.
Others.
Each now felt like a door.
Behind some might be living people.
Behind others, Laura.
Anna searched only public information, using a laptop Morales had approved.
No logging into Dererick's accounts.
No direct contact.
She tried combinations of initials, workplaces and cities.
Most led nowhere.
Then S.H. produced a possibility.
Samantha Hale.
A woman who had disappeared three years earlier.
Anna stopped.
The age matched.
The city matched one of Dererick's consulting assignments.
Samantha had vanished after leaving work.
Her car was found at home.
No signs of struggle.
The case remained open.
Anna woke Clare.
Her sister read the article.
“Call Morales.”
They did.
Morales was silent for several seconds after Anna explained.
“Send me the link. Do nothing else.”
Anna complied.
Clare returned to bed.
Anna remained awake.
At 3:08 a.m., Morales called.
“The initials may match.”
Anna's stomach clenched.
“You mean Samantha?”
“Yes.”
“Is she dead?”
“We don't know.”
“Was Dererick connected to her?”
“There was overlap.”
Again that careful language.
“How?”
“Her employer hired the same consulting firm Dererick worked for.”
Anna leaned against the table.
“How many people?”
“We're mapping it.”
“How many?”
Morales sighed.
“Several names are producing concerning results.”
Anna closed her eyes.
The archive was not a collection.
It was a history.
Before Morales hung up, he added, “There's something else.”
“What?”
“Investigators searched Laura Reynolds's stored belongings.”
Anna straightened.
“They found records?”
“Not exactly.”
Inside an old paperback, Laura had hidden a key.
Taped beside it was a handwritten address.
A storage facility two towns from where she had lived.
The unit was still active.
Fees had been prepaid for years.
“Who paid them?”
“Cash deposits.”
Anna's pulse quickened.
“When are you opening it?”
“An investigator is obtaining access now.”
Anna looked toward the clock.
Nearly four in the morning.
“Call me.”
“I will.”
She tried to sleep.
At six, her phone rang.
Morales.
His first words were, “Laura Reynolds knew somebody was following her.”
Inside the storage unit, investigators had found boxes containing journals, photographs and printed emails.
There was also a small digital recorder.
Anna gripped the table.
“What does it say?”
“It's being processed.”
“Morales.”
He paused.
“One envelope had your name on it.”
Anna went completely still.
Clare, awake now, entered the kitchen.
“What?”
Anna held up a hand.
“My name?”
“Yes.”
“How could Laura know me? She died eighteen months ago.”
“We don't know yet.”
“What was inside?”
“Nothing.”
Anna's confusion sharpened.
“Nothing?”
“The envelope was empty.”
She closed her eyes.
Laura had known her name before Anna knew Laura existed.
Then Morales said, “There was writing on the inside flap.”
Anna waited.
“What did it say?”
His answer was quiet.
If Anna comes looking, tell her the tea is only the beginning.
