Chapter 12 - The Leak

Detective Brooks did not defend her department.

She locked the conference-room door and listed the six people who knew about the dock examination.

Herself.

The sheriff.

A crime-scene technician.

The structural engineer.

An assistant district attorney.

And Deputy Carl Raines.

Simone recognized the last name.

“He was at my house when we found the drive.”

“Yes.”

“He saw where it was hidden.”

“Yes.”

Marcus leaned forward. “Could he have told Calder?”

“We’re not accusing anyone yet.”

Lena asked, “Who ran the property security logs that showed the back camera outage?”

Brooks answered slowly. “Raines requested them.”

The detective’s jaw tightened.

“I’m taking this outside the department.”

“To who?” Simone asked.

“State Bureau of Investigation.”

Within hours, the case widened.

SBI agents quietly reviewed Raines’s finances.

They found monthly cash deposits just below federal reporting thresholds.

The deposits began eleven months earlier.

Lena found a photograph from a charity golf tournament showing Raines beside Victor Calder.

Neither man had disclosed knowing the other.

Simone felt sick.

“Was Raines at the hospital?” she asked suddenly.

Detective Brooks checked the incident log.

“Yes. He responded to the lake and later collected initial statements.”

“Did he interview David?”

“Yes.”

“For how long?”

“Seven minutes.”

“Rebecca?”

“Five.”

“Me?”

“You were receiving treatment.”

Simone stared at the table.

Raines had been present from the beginning.

Maybe that was why no one examined the dock until weeks later.

The initial report called the collapse “probable structural failure.”

That phrase had delayed everything.

SBI obtained a warrant for Raines’s phone.

A deleted message recovered from the device was sent to a number linked to Calder on the night before the accident.

Tomorrow. Same place. Three targets likely.

Simone read the line twice.

“Three targets?”

Marcus said, “You, David, Rebecca.”

“Why would Calder target all three?”

Lena answered, “Maybe he didn’t care who fell.”

The thought was worse than a specific murder plan.

To Calder, they were not people.

They were leverage.

That evening, police arrested Raines on corruption charges unrelated to the dock while investigators searched his home.

They found forty-three thousand dollars in cash and a burner phone hidden inside a toolbox.

On that phone was a message from Grant.

Board is ready. Tell V no guarantees who goes in.

V replied:

Doesn’t matter. Fear works either way.

Detective Brooks read it aloud.

Simone closed her eyes.

“So Calder ordered the sabotage.”

“It strongly supports that.”

“And Grant did it.”

“Yes.”

“David?”

“We still need to establish what he knew.”

That question came closer to an answer when David asked to speak with Simone in the presence of attorneys.

They met in a secured conference room at Marcus’s Raleigh office.

David looked older than he had three weeks earlier.

Simone sat opposite him.

“You have ten minutes.”

He nodded.

“I knew Calder was going to scare you.”

Her expression did not change.

“What did that mean?”

“He said he would create a situation where you understood the stakes.”

“Did he mention the dock?”

“No.”

“Did he mention an accident?”

David hesitated.

“Once.”

Simone’s breath stopped.

“What did he say?”

“He said accidents make people cooperative.”

“And you still brought me there.”

David’s eyes filled.

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because I thought I could control the meeting.”

“You couldn’t even control yourself.”

“I know.”

“No. You don’t get that word either.”

He looked down.

Simone leaned forward.

“When the dock broke, you saw me.”

David’s face crumpled.

“Yes.”

“You swam past me.”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

He took a shaking breath.

“Rebecca had told me the night before that she had copied everything. I thought she had the drive on her.”

Simone already knew, but hearing him admit it made the room colder.

“You chose evidence over your wife and child.”

“I panicked.”

“You calculated.”

“For one horrible second, yes.”

His voice broke.

“I thought if Rebecca drowned, Calder’s evidence and mine disappeared with her. I thought I could pull her out and come back for you.”

“But you didn’t come back.”

“I turned around when I reached shore.”

“Isaiah had already saved me.”

David nodded, crying now.

Simone felt no comfort in his tears.

“You did not cut the dock,” she said. “But you brought me onto it.”

“Yes.”

“You did not kill Ava with your hands.”

He covered his face.

“But every lie you told built the road to that lake.”

David whispered, “I know.”

This time she let him keep the word.

Because now it sounded like a confession.

The SBI also discovered that Raines had accessed the accident file six times after the case should have gone dormant. Each access occurred within hours of a new inquiry by Marcus or Lena.

“He was tracking us,” Simone said.

Detective Brooks nodded. “It appears so.”

“Did you trust him?”

“I did.”

The detective’s answer held more pain than anger.

Simone recognized it immediately.

Betrayal had its own exhausted language.

“I’m sorry,” Simone said.

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Brooks looked at her. “Thank you. But we keep moving.”

That became another quiet alliance in the case: two women with different losses refusing to let trust betrayed become judgment abandoned.