"From where?"

"The bank."

"Why?"

Raymond's jaw tightened.

"Because I knew what they were looking for."

Michael whispered, "There it is."

Grant asked about the threatening text messages.

Raymond denied sending them.

He admitted taking the photographs.

He admitted following us.

But he insisted he had not threatened anyone.

Then Grant placed a photograph of the cassette on the table.

Raymond's face changed.

"You found it."

"You knew it existed?"

Raymond looked toward the one-way mirror.

It felt as if he were looking directly at Grandma.

"Thomas told me."

Grandma stood.

"Let me in there."

Lena shook her head.

"Not yet."

Inside the interview room, Grant asked the question everyone wanted answered.

"What happened to Thomas Walsh?"

Raymond stared at his hands.

"I don't know."

Grandma slammed her palm against the table in our room.

"Liar."

Raymond continued.

"I was sent to stop him from going public."

"By Walter Haines?"

Raymond nodded.

"And others."

"Names?"

"Most are gone now."

"That isn't an answer."

Raymond rubbed his face.

"Thomas wouldn't sign the statement."

"Then what?"

"He left."

"With who?"

Raymond looked up.

"A woman named Claire Mercer."

Grandma froze.

I looked at her.

"Who is Claire Mercer?"

Grandma's face was unreadable.

"She was Thomas's younger sister."

I stared at her.

"Grandpa had a sister?"

"Yes."

"What happened to her?"

Grandma whispered, "She disappeared too."

Inside the interview room, Raymond said something even stranger.

"Claire was supposed to drive Thomas to a federal office."

"She never made it."

"Their car was found near the coast the next morning."

Grandma closed her eyes.

I could barely process it.

Two people from the same family.

Gone on the same night.

And everyone had been told different stories.

Then Raymond leaned toward Grant.

"But Thomas left one more thing."

Grant asked, "What?"

Raymond looked again toward the mirror.

"A list of names."

Grandma whispered, "Where?"

Raymond answered as if he could hear her.

"Inside the first-class upgrade record for Evelyn Walsh."

When Raymond admitted following us, Grandma's expression changed in a way I had never seen before.

It was not surprise.

It was recognition.

"He always followed," she said.

I looked at her.

"What do you mean?"

"After Thomas disappeared, Ray came everywhere with me."

"Police station. Airline office. Insurance meetings."

"I thought he was helping."

Lena turned from the window.

"He may have been monitoring what you learned."

Grandma nodded slowly.

"He always knew which questions I had asked."

The realization seemed to rearrange decades of memory.

"There was one airline clerk who promised to call me back."

"The next day she refused to speak to me."

"Ray had visited the office that morning."

Michael whispered, "He was controlling the information."

Grandma's mouth tightened.

"And I thanked him for helping me."

I touched her shoulder.

"You didn't know."

She looked at me sharply.

"Don't make excuses for me."

"I'm not."

Her face softened.

"Good."

Then she turned back toward the interview room.

"I want to hear him say what he did."

Not because she wanted revenge.

Because after twenty-seven years of other people telling her what had happened, she was finally determined to hear every version from the people who had created them.

Chapter 13 - WHY FIRST CLASS MATTERED

At first, the sentence made no sense.

A first-class upgrade record from twenty-seven years ago should have been meaningless.

Then Michael remembered something.

"The gate agent."

I looked at him.

"What about her?"

"When Evelyn changed her seat, the system flagged the old profile."

Grandma frowned.

"What old profile?"

Michael took out his phone and called the airline operations desk.

After several transfers, he spoke to someone in records.

He gave Grandma's full name and the original reservation number.

Then he waited.

His expression changed.

"You're sure?"

He listened again.

"Send it securely to Investigator Ortiz."

He ended the call.

Grandma waited.

"What did they find?"

"When Daniel bought your first-class ticket, the reservation system matched you to an archived loyalty profile created by Thomas."

"I never had a loyalty account."

"He created one for you."

"Why?"

"We don't know yet."

Lena's laptop chimed.

A document arrived.

She opened it.

The record was a scan of an old paper form.

At the top were Grandpa's name and Grandma's.

Below them was a strange series of initials.

R.C.

W.H.

P.B.

C.M.

And several others.

Beside each set of initials was a number.

Lena stared at the page.

"This isn't a loyalty record."

Michael shook his head.

"It's hidden inside one."

Grandma leaned closer.

"Thomas used the upgrade request as a place no one would think to search."

I pointed to the numbers.

"What are those?"

Grant entered the room carrying a photocopy of an old employee directory.

"Employee IDs."

He matched the first one.

R.C.

Raymond Cole.

The second.

W.H.

Walter Haines.

The third.

P.B.