Chapter 7 - What My Mother Sold
Helen’s attorney told investigators the payments were consulting fees.
Nobody laughed.
Northstar Clinical Procurement had no reason to pay a sixty year old homemaker with no technical credentials hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Helen did have one qualification.
Access.
To my father’s business.
To Valerie.
To Julian’s belongings after he died.
To me.
The REDLINE RETRIEVAL payment destroyed the story that she merely panicked to protect her daughter.
She had been paid.
Then another record.
$35,000.
Memo:
SOURCE STATUS.
Three days after Ellison’s second payment from Helen.
She bought information about Julian.
Then sold what she learned back into the network.
My mother.
I thought about every Christmas she called Julian “too secretive.”
Every time she complained:
“He thinks he’s better than us.”
Every time she told me cancer had made him irritable.
Maybe she was frightened by what he knew.
Maybe she was also angry.
Both.
Then Edward asked to speak with me.
I refused at first.
An hour later, Matthew came into the kitchen.
“Mom?”
“Yes?”
“Grandpa is crying.”
I hated that it mattered.
Still did.
I met Edward outside.
No Helen.
No Valerie.
Just my father and me.
He said:
“I knew she was taking money.”
“How much?”
“Not the amount.”
“From Northstar?”
“I didn’t know the name.”
“When did you know?”
“After Julian died.”
“You stayed.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
He looked at me.
“Because I had already spent thirty years telling myself your mother’s worst decisions were temporary.”
That sentence was almost an apology.
Not enough.
Then:
“Did you know she searched Matthew’s room for the car?”
“No.”
“Did you know she took my letter?”
“Yes.”
“Did you know she sent it to Jason?”
His face changed.
“What?”
So maybe not.
Reed had not told me that yet.
Police recovered Jason’s old cloud storage after obtaining a warrant on current accounts.
Inside was a photograph of Julian’s letter.
Timestamp:
The morning after Helen opened it.
Sender metadata:
Helen Monroe’s phone.
She photographed my husband’s final warning to me and sent it to the man he was investigating.
Edward looked sick.
“I didn’t know.”
“But you knew she kept the letter.”
“Yes.”
“You could have told me.”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“Valerie had Dylan by then.”
Dylan was not born until later? Need timeline. Valerie now 28, Dylan maybe 7, Julian died 4 years, so Dylan existed age 3 when Julian died. Fine.
“Jason said if the old case reopened, Valerie could lose everything.”
“So you let me lose the truth.”
He nodded.
I almost walked away.
Then Edward said:
“Matthew’s car wasn’t the only thing your mother took.”
I stopped.
“What?”
“Julian left a small external drive with me personally.”
My heart pounded.
“When?”
“Two weeks before he died.”
“Where is it?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?”
“Helen found it before I could give it to you.”
I stared.
“What did she do?”
“She gave it to Jason.”
That drive could be the missing second Redline archive.
Reed had two encrypted drives from locker.
One still closed.
Maybe this was different.
Then Edward whispered:
“Julian told me something when he gave it to me.”
“What?”
“He said, ‘If Clara ever learns I was investigating her family, make sure she knows I never stopped trusting her.’”
My throat closed.
Then police called Reed.
Jason Parker’s passport had just been scanned entering the United States.
May you like
He was not in Dubai anymore.
He had landed in Phoenix that morning.
