Chapter 8 - Derek Shaw Had Lily’s Flash Drive but Claimed Jason Gave It to Him

Derek did not run far.

He sat in an interview room wearing jeans, an expensive watch, and the stunned expression of a man discovering that disappearing is harder than planning it.

His attorney arrived before he answered substantive questions.

The flash drive was sealed for forensic examination.

Derek admitted it belonged to Lily.

“How did you get it?” Nolan asked.

“Jason gave it to me.”

“When?”

“The night she died.”

My breath stopped behind the observation glass.

“At the house?”

“Yes.”

“What time?”

“I don’t know.”

“Try.”

“After nine.”

“Why were you there?”

“Jason called.”

“What did he say?”

“That Lily found Crestline records.”

“What did he want you to do?”

“Talk.”

Nolan waited.

Derek looked toward his lawyer.

The lawyer nodded once.

“Talk,” Derek repeated.

“You drove across town after nine at night to discuss accounting with a pregnant woman?”

“She knew me.”

“Did she invite you?”

“No.”

“How did you enter?”

“Basement.”

“Why not the front door?”

Derek’s mouth tightened.

“Jason told me the cameras were on.”

There it was.

“Did he disable one?”

“I don’t know.”

“Did you see him do it?”

“No.”

“What happened inside?”

Derek said Lily was in the basement gathering boxes.

Jason was arguing with her.

She accused them of stealing from Northpoint and risking her inherited property.

Derek tried to explain that the land deal would recover.

Lily laughed in his face.

That sounded right.

“She said she was going to the board in the morning.”

“What did Jason say?”

“He told her she was destroying everything.”

“Then?”

“She took a flash drive from a lockbox.”

“The one in your truck?”

“Yes.”

“What was on it?”

“Copies.”

“Of?”

“Company records.”

“Why did you take it?”

Derek looked down.

“I didn’t.”

Nolan leaned forward.

“You were arrested with it.”

“Jason gave it to me after.”

“After what?”

Silence.

Nolan did not fill it.

Derek’s lawyer whispered to him.

Derek rubbed both hands over his face.

“Lily walked upstairs.”

“Alive?”

“Yes.”

“Was she injured?”

“No.”

“Drugged?”

“She looked tired.”

“Did you know someone had tampered with her medication?”

“No.”

“Did you follow her?”

“No.”

“Did Jason?”

“Yes.”

My chest tightened.

Derek continued.

“I stayed in the basement. I was trying to gather the paper copies.”

“Steal them.”

“Recover company property.”

“You entered through a basement door to take documents from a woman planning to report financial misconduct.”

Derek looked away.

“Call it what you want.”

“I will.”

Nolan asked what he heard next.

“Arguing.”

“Words?”

“Not all of them.”

“Any?”

“Lily said, ‘Don’t touch me.’”

I gripped the edge of the table.

“Then?”

“A crash.”

Nolan’s voice remained flat.

“What did you do?”

“I ran upstairs.”

“What did you see?”

Derek’s eyes closed.

“Lily at the bottom.”

“And Jason?”

“On the landing.”

“Where exactly?”

“Top of the stairs.”

“Did you see him push her?”

“No.”

“Did he say he pushed her?”

“No.”

“Then why run?”

Derek stared.

“Because he looked at me and said, ‘You were never here.’”

The room went cold.

“What happened to the flash drive?”

“Jason picked it up near her bag.”

“Near Lily?”

“Yes.”

“He did that before calling emergency services?”

Derek hesitated.

“Yes.”

“What else did he do?”

“He checked her pulse.”

“Did he perform CPR?”

“I don’t know.”

“Did he call 911 immediately?”

“No.”

“How long?”

“Maybe two minutes.”

Phone records suggested longer.

“What happened during those minutes?”

Derek’s face changed.

“He went into the basement.”

“Why?”

“To get the papers.”

“Then?”

“He gave me the drive and told me to leave.”

“And you did.”

“Yes.”

A woman was dying.

A baby was dying.

Derek drove away with evidence.

He expected his admission to make him look less guilty.

It did not.

“Why keep the drive?” Nolan asked.

“Insurance.”

“Against Jason?”

“Yes.”

“What’s on it?”

“I never opened it.”

That sounded unbelievable until forensics later confirmed the drive had not been mounted on any device since Lily created its final file set.

Derek kept evidence without viewing it because he needed leverage, not truth.

The flash drive contained far more than Northpoint payments.

Lily had saved emails.

Bank records.

Photographs of her pill bottle.

Audio notes.

And a PDF exported from a nursery-monitor account.

That caught Nolan’s attention.

“Nursery monitor?”

I remembered the unfinished room upstairs.

Pale green walls.

A crib still boxed against one wall.

Lily had shown me the camera months earlier.

“It can hear Noah breathing,” she had said.

She never got to hear him breathe there.

The monitor had cloud storage.

Police obtained the account with legal authorization.

Most recordings were ordinary test clips.

Jason assembling furniture.

Lily laughing because he installed a shelf crooked.

Music playing while she folded baby clothes.

Then one file.

Timestamp: night of death.

9:22 p.m.

The camera did not face the stairs.

It faced the crib.

But the microphone heard the hallway.

Lily’s voice.

“Give it back.”

Jason.

“You are not walking out with that.”

Lily again.

“You already took my money. You don’t get my proof.”

Then Derek’s voice, farther away.

“Jason, let her go.”

I stopped breathing.

A thud.

Lily gasped.

Then:

“Take your hand off me.”

Jason said something too muffled to understand.

Footsteps.

A door struck the wall.

Then Lily’s voice, closer.

“You drugged me.”

Silence.

Jason answered clearly.

“You were supposed to sleep.”

My mother screamed.

The recording continued.

Lily: “You changed my pills?”

Jason: “I was trying to stop you from hurting yourself.”

Lily laughed.

A terrible sound.

“You mean stop me talking.”

Then movement.

Fast.

Derek: “Jason—”

Lily: “Don’t!”

A crash thundered through the microphone.

Then nothing for three seconds.

Derek whispered:

“Oh God.”

Jason said:

“Get downstairs.”

The recording did not show the fall.

But it answered one question.

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Jason knew the pills were changed because he had changed them.

And whatever happened at the stairs, he was close enough that Lily told him not to touch her seconds before she fell.