Marcus closed his eyes.
Karen understood before he spoke.
“I gave him part of it.”
The betrayal landed harder than she expected.
“You did what?”
“I was scared.”
“You gave evidence to the man Dad was investigating?”
“I had a reason.”
“What reason?”
Marcus opened another drawer and removed a folded foreclosure notice.
Karen saw the amount.
$184,600.
Marcus whispered, “Because Dad had mortgaged the garage.”
Karen stared at him.
“He never told you.”
Marcus’s voice cracked.
“And Kavalik promised me if I gave him the notebook, the debt would disappear.”
Karen read the foreclosure notice twice.
The creditor was not a bank.
It was an LLC.
Granite Meridian Holdings.
“What is this company?”
Marcus leaned against the desk.
“I didn’t know at first.”
“You transferred nearly two hundred thousand dollars of leverage over Dad’s garage to some company you didn’t investigate?”
Marcus’s eyes flashed.
“You weren’t here.”
The words struck exactly where he intended.
Karen folded the notice carefully.
“Explain.”
“Dad took out a private loan eighteen months before he died.”
“For what?”
“I don’t know.”
“You ran the business with him.”
“He stopped telling me everything.”
“And you never asked?”
“I asked every damn day.”
Marcus turned away.
“He said he was trying to fix something.”
Karen glanced at Samuel’s photograph.
“What?”
“He wouldn’t say.”
Marcus walked toward the old workbench.
“After he died, Granite Meridian sent the default notice. Thirty days. Then Kavalik came by.”
“Why would a sheriff care about a private mortgage?”
“That’s when I knew.”
“Knew what?”
Marcus looked at her.
“Granite Meridian’s mailing address was the same office building as Kingsland Recovery.”
Karen’s stomach tightened.
“The tow company.”
“Different suite. Same building.”
“Who owns the LLC?”
“Some Nevada corporation.”
“That doesn’t answer the question.”
“I know.”
Karen’s anger sharpened.
“And Kavalik offered to make the debt disappear?”
“He said the county had relationships with investors. Said Dad had gotten involved in things that could hurt the family.”
“What things?”
“The notebook.”
Karen stepped closer.
“You gave him the original?”
“No.”
That stopped her.
“What did you give him?”
Marcus opened the safe beneath Samuel’s desk.
Inside were vehicle titles, insurance policies and an old revolver wrapped in cloth.
He removed a plastic envelope.
“Seven pages.”
Karen stared.
“You copied them?”
“Dad had already copied them.”
“Where’s the rest?”
“I don’t know.”
Karen’s disbelief must have shown.
Marcus snapped, “I’m telling you the truth.”
“You just admitted lying to me for almost a year.”
“I admitted being terrified.”
“There’s a difference?”
“Yes!”
His voice echoed through the garage.
Marcus lowered it.
“Yes, there is.”
Karen looked at him.
He seemed older than forty-four.
“What happened after you gave Kavalik the pages?”
“The foreclosure stopped.”
“Officially?”
“No.”
“Then it didn’t stop.”
“It stopped coming.”
“That means nothing.”
“It meant I kept the garage.”
Karen shook her head.
“No. It meant somebody chose not to collect yet.”
Marcus flinched.
He knew she was right.
Karen placed the foreclosure notice beside the envelope.
“What were on the seven pages?”
“VINs. Owner names. Dates.”
“Any annotations?”
“Initials.”
“What initials?”
Marcus handed her the plastic sleeve.
Karen slid out photocopies.
Samuel’s handwriting filled the pages.
His block letters were unmistakable.
Beside several vehicles he had written DK.
Others had RN.
HP.
And occasionally a small triangle.
Karen examined the dates.
The records went back four years.
One entry caught her attention.
RED BMW — 2023.
Seized 6/14.
Owner: L. Mercer.
Auction 6/22.
Eight days.
“That’s impossible,” Karen murmured.
Marcus frowned.
“What?”
“Most legitimate forfeiture processes take longer than eight days, especially if contested.”
She scanned another.
A Range Rover.
Seized Monday.
Transferred eleven days later.
Then a Harley.
Nine days.
“These aren’t ordinary forfeitures.”
“That’s what Dad said.”
Karen looked up.
“He told you?”
Marcus nodded.
“He thought they were using abandoned-vehicle procedures.”
Karen understood.
An abandoned vehicle could move through a different process from property seized as evidence.
But a traffic stop should not magically transform a titled car into abandoned property.
“They changed the classification.”
“Dad thought so.”
“How?”
“He said somebody inside records had to be helping.”
Rebecca entered Karen’s mind.
Not as a suspect.
As someone who had looked genuinely shocked.
“Who was records clerk before Rebecca?”
Marcus thought.
“A woman named Denise Marlow. Retired.”
“When?”
“Maybe two years ago.”
Karen photographed each page.
“Did Dad ever report this?”
Marcus laughed without humor.
“To who? Kavalik?”
“State police. Attorney general. FBI.”
“He said he tried.”
Karen looked at him sharply.
“Tried how?”
“I don’t know.”
“You keep saying that.”
“Because he stopped trusting me.”
The bitterness returned.
“Why?”
Marcus stared at the floor.
“Because I told him to stop.”
That landed differently.
“What exactly did you say?”
“I said he was going to get us destroyed over strangers’ cars.”
Karen said nothing.
Marcus swallowed.
“I told him if people were stupid enough to lose their property, that wasn’t our problem.”
“And Dad?”
“He looked at me like he didn’t know me.”
Marcus sat heavily in Samuel’s chair.
“I was angry. Business was dying. He was spending hours digging through county records instead of working.”
Karen saw the family fracture more clearly now.
Samuel had been investigating alone.
Marcus had resented him.
Karen had been gone.
Then Samuel died with both children convinced the other had received more of him.
“What was the private loan for?” Karen asked.
Marcus shook his head.
“I still don’t know.”
Karen examined the papers again.
On the final page Samuel had written:
GMH — NOT THE BEGINNING.
Below it:
ASK WHO BUYS AT 2:00 A.M.
Karen read the line twice.
“What does this mean?”
Marcus looked.
“I’ve never seen that note.”
“You copied these pages.”
“No. Dad copied them. I never read all of them.”
Karen stared at the phrase.
ASK WHO BUYS AT 2:00 A.M.
Her phone buzzed.
Unknown number.
She answered.
“Karen Ashworth-Reyes.”
Silence.
Then Deputy Osei spoke.
“Judge, don’t say my name.”
Karen looked at Marcus.
“What happened?”
“They’re cleaning the server.”
Her chest tightened.
“Right now?”