Chapter 7: Cutter Makes His Move
Grace filed the criminal referral that same afternoon.
By the following morning, two detectives from the Chicago Police Department's cold case unit were sitting in Grace's conference room with a recorder on the table and a legal pad between them.
Their names were Reyes — no relation to Alejandro, which the older one noted with a brief, dry smile — and Pacheco.
Lucy sat at the head of the table.
I sat beside her.
Alejandro sat to my left.
Grace sat at the end.
Detective Pacheco leaned forward.
"Ms.
Vasquez, I want to be upfront with you.
The original incident report from 2004 lists the event as an accidental fall.
No witnesses named.
Case closed.
What we're looking at now is a potential charge of criminal negligence, possibly aggravated, depending on what the medical records show about the nature of the injury and the delay in treatment."
"What does that mean for Cutter?" I asked.
"It means if we can establish that he knew she was seriously injured and deliberately chose not to call for help, we're looking at a felony." Pacheco glanced at his partner.
"It also means the statute of limitations is going to be a question.
Our legal team is reviewing it now."
"And the bribery?" Alejandro said.
"The contracts committee."
"That's a separate matter.
Older.
Harder." Detective Reyes tapped his pen against the pad.
"Your father is deceased?"
"Three years ago."
"Then the bribery charge is complicated.
But the cover-up — the private doctor, the false admission, the deliberate suppression of her identity — that potentially involves living parties."
"The doctor," I said.
"If he's still practicing, yes."
Lucy had been quiet through all of this.
She was looking at the photograph of Dario Cutter that the detectives had placed on the table — an official contractor ID photo, cleaner than the database image but unmistakably the same man.
"He was afraid of me," she said suddenly.
Everyone looked at her.
"That night.
When he found me on the site." She kept her eyes on the photograph.
"He wasn't angry because I was trespassing.
He was afraid because he knew what I had.
My bag.
My files." She looked up at Detective Pacheco.
"I had a camera.
A physical camera, not a phone.
And a leather satchel with printed documents inside.
I remember the strap.
Brown leather with a brass buckle."
Pacheco wrote something down.
"You remember the bag."
"I remember him taking it," she said.
"Before he walked away.
He took my bag."
The room went quiet.
"If that bag still exists," Grace said carefully, "or if the photographs were ever developed—"
"We'll look," Pacheco said.
He was already writing faster.
The meeting ended at noon.
As we rode the elevator down, my phone buzzed with a message from an unknown number.
*You should think carefully about what you're doing.
Some things are better left alone.*
I showed it to Grace before the elevator doors opened.
She photographed it immediately.
"Forward that to me right now." She looked at Alejandro.
"He's escalating.
Which means he's scared." She looked at me.
"Which also means you need to be careful."
"He's trying to frighten us into stopping," I said.
"Yes." She held the elevator door.
"Don't stop."
That evening, I sat with Lucy in the guest suite while Alejandro took a call from Grace in his office.
The room was quiet.
Lucy was looking at the locket, which I had placed in her hands an hour earlier and which she had not put down since.
"I used to sing to you," she said.
I looked at her.
"When you were small.
A song my own mother taught me." She traced the edge of the locket with her thumb.
"I can't remember all the words anymore.
But I remember the melody."
"Sing it," I said.
She looked at me, uncertain.
"Please," I said.
She sang four bars, barely above a whisper, and I felt something unlock in my chest that I had not known was locked.
A memory I couldn't see clearly — warmth, and a voice, and the feeling of being held by someone who would not let go.
My phone buzzed again.
May you like
Same unknown number.
*Last warning.*
