CHAPTER 9 Someone Inside the Investigation
The evidence locker was supposed to be untouchable.
Every item had a barcode.
Every transfer required a signature.
Every officer who opened the room left a digital record.
Evidence didn't simply disappear.
Especially not in an active stalking investigation.
Yet my sketchbook was gone.
Detective Brooks stared at the inventory log on her laptop.
"It was checked in at 4:12 p.m.," she said.
"I signed for it myself."
She clicked to the next entry.
"At 6:47 p.m., someone accessed Locker B-14."
"Who?"
She didn't answer immediately.
Instead, she enlarged the screen.
The name that appeared made Officer Daniel stop breathing for a second.
Detective Mark Ellison.
I frowned.
"I've never met him."
Brooks' jaw tightened.
"He's not assigned to your case."
Within an hour, Internal Affairs was notified.
Not because anyone believed Mark Ellison was guilty.
Because no detective had any legitimate reason to access my evidence.
Brooks found him in his office before the paperwork even reached his desk.
"Why did you open Locker B-14?"
Ellison looked genuinely confused.
"I didn't."
"The system says you did."
"Then the system's wrong."
Brooks placed the access log in front of him.
He stared at it.
"I was in court at that time."
"Can you prove it?"
"I signed in at the courthouse."
"There's security footage."
There was.
An hour later, the footage confirmed it.
At 6:47 p.m., the exact moment the evidence locker had been opened...
Detective Mark Ellison was standing before a judge nearly fifteen miles away.
Someone had used his credentials.
The police department immediately locked down the evidence room.
Every access card was audited.
Every digital entry rechecked.
The answer came just after midnight.
The door hadn't been opened with a physical key card.
It had been opened remotely.
Someone had logged into the department's evidence system from inside the building and temporarily cloned Ellison's credentials.
"This wasn't a thief," Brooks said quietly.
"It was someone who understands our security."
The realization hit everyone at once.
The stalker wasn't simply watching me anymore.
They had crossed another line.
They had infiltrated the investigation itself.
The next morning, I was moved again.
This time, not to another student apartment.
To a confidential safe house owned by the county.
Only four people were given the address.
Detective Brooks.
Officer Daniel.
The district attorney.
And me.
No digital records.
No university paperwork.
No mailing address.
If anyone found me now...
It would mean the leak was much closer than anyone wanted to believe.
The safe house sat at the end of a quiet gravel road.
A small brick home surrounded by oak trees.
Nothing remarkable.
That was the point.
I unpacked only a backpack.
I had learned not to get comfortable.
Maya helped me make the spare bedroom feel less empty.
She placed my laptop on the desk.
Folded a blanket across the bed.
Then stopped.
"Cait..."
"What?"
She pointed toward the window.
Outside, tied to the branch of an oak tree...
Hung a tiny blue ribbon.
My breath caught.
A faded blue ribbon.
Exactly like the one that had been tied around my childhood teddy bear.
Daniel searched the property immediately.
No footprints.
No cameras.
No notes.
Nothing.
The ribbon was the only sign that anyone had ever been there.
Brooks examined it with gloved hands.
"It could mean nothing."
I shook my head.
"No."
"My mother tied ribbons like that."
"On birthday presents."
"On Christmas gifts."
"Even lunch boxes."
She called them...
"Little reminders of love."
The words made me feel sick.
Two days passed without incident.
No anonymous emails.
No phone calls.
No sightings.
The silence felt unnatural.
Like standing in the eye of a hurricane.
Everyone knew another storm was coming.
No one knew when.
On the third evening, Detective Brooks visited carrying a sealed envelope.
"We identified the account that paid Richard."
"It was my mother's."
"Not exactly."
She slid the paperwork toward me.
"The money came from an account in Deborah Monroe's name."
"But she wasn't the one depositing it."
I looked closer.
Every monthly deposit had been made in person.
Always at the same bank.
Always by the same individual.
The surveillance photos were grainy.
But the face was unmistakable.
Jessica.
My sister hadn't just known about the payments.
She had made them.
Month after month.
Year after year.
She wasn't helping our mother.
She was participating.
That night I couldn't sleep.
Around 2:00 a.m., I wandered into the kitchen for water.
The house was silent.
Then...
A faint tapping sound.
Tick.
Tick.
Tick.
Coming from somewhere inside the walls.
I froze.
The tapping stopped.
Then started again.
Three slow knocks.
Exactly like the ones outside my first apartment.
Daniel searched the house before sunrise.
He eventually found the source.
Not inside the walls.
Inside the attic.
Hidden beneath loose insulation.
A small battery-powered metronome.
Programmed to click every thirty minutes.
Attached to it was another folded note.
This one contained only a single sentence.
Still checking the locks?
No signature.
No fingerprints.
Nothing.
Only proof that someone had entered the safe house.
Again.
Brooks looked furious.
"This address exists nowhere."
She turned toward Daniel.
"No paper trail?"
"None."
"No emails?"
"None."
She looked back at me.
"They shouldn't know you're here."
I whispered the question none of us wanted to ask.
"So how do they?"
No one answered.
That afternoon, Internal Affairs completed its first review of the evidence-room breach.
The report listed twenty-one employees who could theoretically clone access credentials.
Too many.
But one detail stood out.
Only three of those employees had worked both at the police department...
And previously held jobs at the university.
One name made Detective Brooks go completely still.
"Impossible," she whispered.
Daniel looked over her shoulder.
His face lost all color.
"What?"
Brooks slowly turned the file toward him.
The employment history showed that, six years earlier, one of the department's civilian IT administrators had worked as...
Director of Campus Housing Technology.
The same department responsible for electronic key cards.
The same department that handled student housing records.
The same department that had processed my apartment assignment.
The administrator's name was:
Nathan Monroe.
I stared at the page.
Monroe.
My last name.
My voice barely worked.
"...I don't know any Nathan."
Brooks nodded.
"I checked."
"He's not listed anywhere on your family tree."
Then she looked back at the file.
May you like
"And that's exactly what worries me."
End of Chapter 9.
