Chapter 7 - Searching for Answers
Dawn broke through the motel curtains in sickly shades of grey. Clara had not slept a single minute. She sat on the floor beside the window, watching the empty parking lot as the morning mist rolled off the asphalt. Her mind was a tactical board, charting the few moves she had left.
She couldn't go to the police. The threatening caller had specifically mentioned Marcus’s ""associates"" and a stolen ledger. If Marcus had embezzled money from dangerous people, turning herself in without knowing what was on the drive could land her in prison or hand the boys to child protective services while she was interrogated.
At 7:00 AM, she woke Leo and Toby. They washed their faces in the bathroom sink, and Clara divided a single cereal bar between the two boys, taking none for herself. Leo looked at her with an understanding far beyond his seven years. ""We're not going home, are we, Mom?""
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""Not yet, Leo,"" she answered gently, brushing the hair from his forehead. ""First, we have to finish Dad’s game. We have to find a locker down by the water.""
She took them to a nearby public library as soon as the doors opened at eight o’clock. Settling the boys in the children’s corner with a stack of picture books under the watchful eye of a friendly elderly librarian, Clara logged into a public computer terminal. Her hands shook as she plugged in the black hard drive. A password prompt immediately flashed on the monitor: Enter 12-character security phrase. Below the field was a single hint: The day everything burned.
