Chapter 8: What Decker Wanted Her to Know
Reyes made the call himself.
Twenty minutes later, a uniformed officer brought Marcus Decker into the same conference room.
He was younger than Paige had imagined — early forties, unremarkable face, the kind of man you'd forget in a crowd.
He sat down across from her without being asked and looked at Reyes.
"I want it on record that I'm talking voluntarily."
"It's on record," Reyes said.
Decker looked at Paige.
"You should know I didn't choose this job because I liked it.
I'm not asking for sympathy.
I'm telling you because what I'm about to say is going to be hard to believe, and I need you to understand I have no reason to lie anymore."
"Say it," she said.
"Whitmore didn't just target you for the Raymond play." Decker put both hands flat on the table.
"You were the original target.
Raymond was the method."
Paige didn't move.
"Your mother," Decker said.
"Elena Dawson.
Before she got sick — about four years ago — she was involved in a legal dispute with a company called Meridian Pacific Holdings.
You probably never heard of it."
"I haven't."
"It's one of Whitmore's holding companies.
Your mother had documentation — records from a property deal in Tampa — that showed Meridian Pacific had defrauded a group of elderly homeowners out of their properties using falsified appraisals.
She was going to take it to a consumer advocacy organization.
She had a contact there." Decker paused.
"Then she got sick.
And the documentation disappeared."
Paige's hands were very still in her lap.
"He made my mother sick?" Her voice was quiet.
"No.
Her illness was real.
But the timing was — convenient for Whitmore.
And when she got sick and the documentation was gone, he thought the problem was solved." Decker looked at the table.
"But then you started asking questions.
About two years ago.
You reached out to the same advocacy organization your mother had contacted.
You probably don't even remember it — maybe you were just trying to understand her medical bills, or sort through her papers."
She remembered.
A phone call.
A woman who had been kind but said she couldn't help without documentation.
"Whitmore found out," Decker said.
"And he decided to neutralize you permanently.
Not with violence — he's too careful for that.
But by making you complicit.
By putting you inside Raymond's life in a way that would make you either useful or destroyable, depending on what you did next."
The room was silent except for the faint hum of the building's ventilation.
"The photos," Paige said.
"Were always the insurance policy.
If you cooperated, they stayed buried.
If you didn't—" He spread his hands.
"You'd look like a gold-digger who'd dr*gged an old man."
Reyes had not moved from his position near the wall.
His arms were crossed.
His face gave nothing away.
"Where is the documentation?" Paige asked.
"My mother's records."
Decker reached into his jacket and produced a USB drive.
He set it on the table.
"I copied everything before I handed the phone over," he said.
"Whitmore doesn't know this exists." He looked at Reyes.
"I want it noted that I'm surrendering this voluntarily."
Reyes stepped forward and picked up the drive with a gloved hand.
Paige looked at Decker.
"Why are you doing this?"
He was quiet for a moment.
"I have a mother too," he said.
"She's sixty-three.
She lives alone in Hialeah." He looked at the table.
"That's all I'm going to say about it."
Paige nodded once.
After Decker was escorted out, Reyes set the USB drive in an evidence bag and sealed it.
He looked at Paige across the table.
"This changes the scope significantly," he said.
"If the documentation holds up, we're looking at a pattern of crjme that goes back years.
Fraud, witness suppression, potentially more."
"My mother spent three years fighting that illness," Paige said.
"She's still fighting it."
"I know."
"And he walked around for four years thinking he'd buried it."
"Yes."
She looked at the evidence bag on the table.
A small plastic drive.
Her mother's work.
May you like
Still there.
"I want to see Raymond," she said.
