“In the kitchen, by the microwave,” I said.
He walked into the kitchen and returned with the machine under his arm, its power cord trailing behind him like a dead snake. He had also searched the kitchen drawers, bypassing the silverware and the old recipe cards Lily had written in middle school, to find three black flash drives.
My thumb went to my pocket, searching for the silver skull coin I usually kept there, but it was sitting in my top drawer. I had left it there after returning from the lake.
“We need all external drives as well,” Collins said, opening the drawer of the side table.
He bypassed a stack of old utility bills and pulled out two black backup drives. My chest felt narrow, though I kept my breath steady. Those drives contained nineteen years of my civilian tax records and my security consulting client list.
“Is this everything,” Collins asked, looking at the empty space on the desk.
“That is all of it,” I said.
He did not know that Major Reyes had visited the house two hours earlier while I was still out by the water. Reyes had taken the critical backup drive containing the original campus security footage and moved it to his salvage yard. I did not know this either, assuming the deputies had just taken every piece of evidence I possessed.
“We have to take the router too,” Miller said, reaching behind the television.
He yanked the small black box with its blinking green lights, and the room went silent.
Outside, the air had turned cold, and the first drops of rain were hitting the glass of the front window. I followed them onto the porch at half past three.
Mrs. Gable, who lived across the street, was standing on her porch with a yellow broom in her hand. She did not sweep. She had lived across from us since Lily was a baby, and she knew how quiet our lives had been.
She held her cardigan closed with one hand, looking from the cruiser to my face.
“Is everything all right, Daniel,” Mrs. Gable called out.
“Just some paperwork, Mrs. Gable,” I said.
Two more neighbors down the block had stopped near their mailboxes, their coats pulled tight against the wind.
“Keep your hands where we can see them while we load the trunk, Mr. Walker,” Collins said.
I stood on the wet wood of the porch and kept my arms at my sides. The neighborhood was quiet, except for the hum of the cruiser’s engine running on the street. They placed my life into the trunk of a white sedan and clicked the latch shut.
“You have twenty-four hours to secure legal representation,” Collins said before he got into the driver’s seat.
They backed out of the driveway, leaving two dark wet tracks on the asphalt. I walked to my car and turned the key.
The local bank branch was six blocks away, on the corner of Elm and Fourth. The lobby smelled of wet wool and floor wax.
The bank manager, Mr. Henderson, was a man I had known for twelve years. We had served on the volunteer fire board together. He did not look up from his desk when I walked into his glass office at four o’clock.
“Daniel,” he said, keeping his hands flat on his desk blotter. “I was hoping you wouldn’t come in today.”
“My card didn’t work at the pump,” I said.
“We received a formal notice from the state attorney’s office at two o’clock,” Henderson said. “Your business accounts are frozen under an active investigation.”
“That is my payroll,” I said. “And Lily’s tuition.”
“I can’t override a state order, Daniel,” he said, finally looking at me. “The flag on the account is for suspicious foreign transactions related to your security firm.”
“I run a local physical consulting office,” I said. “There are no foreign transactions.”
“The paperwork came from the capital,” Henderson said, sliding a thin white slip across the desk. “You’ll have to dispute it with them.”
The slip had a phone number with an area code from Columbus.
“How much is locked,” I asked.
“The entire balance,” Henderson said. “Fourteen thousand eight hundred dollars.”
“We have a loan payment on your truck coming up on the fifteenth, Daniel,” Henderson added. “I can’t even deduct it from the account automatically. The system has a hard block.”
“How long,” I asked.
“Usually ninety days,” Henderson said. “Unless the court drops the inquiry.”
Ninety days meant the university board vote would be long over, and Lily’s medical bills would be past due. I took the paper and walked back out into the rain.
I sat in my car for five minutes, staring at the Columbus number on the slip.
I dialed it, but the line went straight to a recorded message about administrative delays.
I hung up after the third repetition of the tone and drove toward the hospital.
The hospital was a ten-minute drive, but the traffic on the bridge was backed up to the river. I parked in the auxiliary lot because my monthly pass for the main garage had already been deactivated at the gate.
The glass doors of Mercy General slid open, and the heat of the lobby hit my face. A security guard I had not seen before was standing near the information desk. He was a large man with a shaved head and a gray uniform that did not fit his shoulders. His name tag read Barnes.
He stepped in front of the elevators before I could reach the button.
“Mr. Walker,” the guard said, reaching into his breast pocket.
“I am going to room four twelve,” I said.
