Chapter 5: The Alert

Natalie met me outside the bank at noon.

I had called her from Grace’s borrowed phone because mine felt dangerous. I told her only that something terrible had happened and I needed her to come with me. This time she didn’t say her aunt was visiting.

She was waiting at the gate in her work uniform, hugging her handbag. When she saw me, she covered her mouth.

“Amelia, you look like you’ve been dragged behind a bus.”

“Thank you,” I said, and almost laughed. It was the first time I’d felt anything like humour in a day.

“Why didn’t you just come to me last night?”

“Your aunt—”

“My aunt left at six.” She said it softly and looked away. “I only said that because I got confused. Vanessa called me an hour before you did.”

I went still, then asked, “Vanessa called you?”

“She said you were having some breakdown and might show up asking for money. She asked me to let her know if you did.” Natalie wiped her eyes. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have listened. I didn’t know it was this bad.”

I wanted to be angry with her, but I didn’t have the strength, and she had come. I squeezed her hand and said, “Later. Come.”

The branch was crowded, but the customer-service officer, a tall young man named Mr. James, took us to a small side office after I explained that I needed to dispute a transaction. He asked for my ID, tapped his keyboard, and fell silent.

“Miss Coker, this is a very large inflow.”

“I know. I didn’t initiate it. I need to know where it came from and who authorised it.”

He frowned. “The transfer was made from the sender’s account to yours. Normally that would be the sender’s own authorisation.”

“My father says he didn’t authorise it either. Can you see the device it came from?”

He hesitated, then turned his monitor slightly toward me. “Strictly speaking, I shouldn’t. But given the circumstances…”

A line of small grey text appeared at the bottom of the screen: a device name, a time, an IP address.

Device: AC-LAPTOP-01. Logged in 9:11 p.m. Transfer 9:14 p.m.

My mouth went dry. “AC-LAPTOP-01. That’s my laptop. ‘AC’ for Amelia Coker.”

“Then the request was made from your own saved device?”

“No. I haven’t used it in nine days. I lent it to my sister last week.” My voice came out thin. “Vanessa said her own screen had cracked. She said she needed it for her visa forms.”

Natalie sucked in a breath beside me.

Mr. James cleared his throat uncomfortably. “I can tell you the login was on the same network as the home address on file. I cannot tell you who was physically using the laptop.”

“But my father’s account? How would someone log in to this?”

“I can’t discuss his account, miss.” He looked genuinely sorry. “But if your father’s credentials were saved on that device, or on the shared household network…”

Dad’s study. The laptop, the study, the evening I’d returned his reading glasses. Everything lined up like beads on a string, and the string led straight to Vanessa.

I thanked him, though my hands were trembling, and we went out into the sun. Natalie caught my arm.

“Amelia. Your own sister did this.”

“I don’t know that.”

“Who else had the laptop?”

“I don’t know.” I leaned against the wall. “Why would she? She’s going abroad. She has everything she wants.”

“Maybe,” Natalie said quietly, “she wants you not to be there when she goes.”

I remembered the relief on Vanessa’s face and the way she’d looked away. Then I remembered Grace, and the photograph, and the letter. My family was a house built on something I couldn’t see, and the first brick had just been pulled out.

A black Toyota pulled up at the kerb in front of us. The window slid down.

“Miss Amelia.”

It was Mr. Daniel, my father’s driver. He was fifty-something, heavy-set, and had driven me to school for ten years. He looked around quickly, as if checking for watchers.

“Daniel? What are you doing here?”

“Mr Coker sent me.” He lowered his voice. “He said I must find you before your mother does.”

He pushed a small paper bag through the window. Inside was a brass key on a string loop and a folded note.

I opened it with shaking fingers. My father’s handwriting, rushed and uneven:

The Hills suites, Unit 14, Beverly Hills. Go alone. Do not tell your mother. Do not tell Grace. Burn this note.

I looked up. “Daniel, what is this?”

He wouldn’t meet my eyes. “I don’t know everything, Miss Amelia. But Mr. Coker cried last night. In twenty years I have never seen that man cry.” He rolled up the window halfway, then stopped. “Madam is looking for you. And she is not the only one.”

“Who else?”

“A man in a grey Land Cruiser came to the gate this morning. He asked your dad about you by name. Mr. Coker said he didn’t know you.” Mr. Daniel swallowed. “Then he locked the gate and sat in the dark for an hour.”

The window slid shut. The Toyota pulled away.

Natalie and I stood in the heat, staring after it. The brass key in my hand was warm, as if someone had been holding it very tightly.

“Amelia,” Natalie whispered. “Don’t go.”

I looked at the key, then at the street, then at my own shadow, which had a bag-shaped lump in it.

“I have to,” I said. “Whoever that man in the grey Land Cruiser is, he knew my name before I knew my own.”