Hard to Trust
Page 24
My finger still inches above the delete key, I looked up at the rows of boxes.
Maybe the answers I wanted were in here. The FBI was convinced that I was guilty and was only looking for evidence to corroborate Tim and Ralph's stories. But what if there was something here, something that would finally prove that I was innocent, instead of merely "not guilty."
A plan began to percolate through the haze of self-pity I'd been wallowing in for the past several weeks. I could clear my name. I could find the money stolen from the investors.
No one knew the ins and outs of Patterson Tinker like I did. Not only had I worked there for six years, I had studied it thoroughly in the past year. And no one knew the evidence in the case like I did. I knew where the bodies were buried, so to speak.
I just needed some time. And the computer. And those hard drives sitting in a box waiting to get shipped off to Rob's storage unit.
I stood up and dug through the stack of boxes, ripping the lid off the one I was looking for before good sense could catch up with me. From between folders stuffed with papers, I pulled out the two external hard drives, their cords trailing behind them. Between them, they contained every page of evidence from that government warehouse. I stuffed them in my messenger bag and resealed the box. I turned off the computer and slid it into the bag, too, along with the cords and a binder that I had compiled months earlier as a directory of the volumes of evidence.
The bag weighed heavily on my shoulder as I composed a quick note to Rob, agreeing to work on the financial fraud case and letting him know that I had taken the laptop home to review the software before I started using it again. Then I turned off the light in the War Room and shut the door behind me.
I left the note on Rob's desk, locked the office, and turned on the alarm, flooded with an unfamiliar energy. Something I hadn't felt in nearly two months.
It was a sense of purpose. I finally had a plan.
CHASING THE DOLLAR
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