Chapter 7 - The Person Across the Street.
Connor called the police before touching anything else.
The photograph remained on the entry table exactly where he had placed it with the envelope beneath it.
Amy stood at the top of the stairs holding Frederick while Rachel spoke to an officer by phone.
No one said Teresa's name.
They did not have to.
The message felt designed to do more than frighten them.
It was meant to destroy certainty.
You still don't know who helped me.
Connor looked through the front window.
The street appeared ordinary.
A dog walker moved past two houses down.
A delivery van turned at the corner.
Mrs. Alvarez across the street watered a row of potted flowers on her porch.
Connor had known most of these neighbors for years.
Now every parked car looked deliberate.
Every curtain seemed capable of hiding a camera.
The responding officer collected the envelope and photograph in a protective sleeve.
He reviewed footage from Connor's new door camera.
At 2:17 p.m., a person wearing a baseball cap and gray jacket approached from outside the camera's main angle.
The face never became clear.
The person taped the envelope to the door and walked north.
Connor watched the clip three times.
"That's not my mother."
The officer agreed.
The person was taller and moved differently.
Amy tightened her arms around Frederick.
"Mason?"
Connor shook his head.
"He was with Rachel at two seventeen."
Rachel confirmed it.
Aunt Betsy became the obvious possibility.
But Connor remembered Teresa's wording.
Who helped me.
Not who is helping me.
He wondered whether the photograph was bait meant to turn him against another relative.
That possibility frightened him almost as much as the picture itself.
The officer advised them to preserve all footage and report any further contact.
After he left, Connor walked across the street to speak with Mrs. Alvarez.
She had been his neighbor since before he married Amy.
She was seventy-two, observant, and famous on the block for noticing every unfamiliar vehicle before anyone else.
"I was wondering when you'd come ask."
Connor stopped at the bottom of her porch steps.
"Ask what?"
Mrs. Alvarez set down her watering can.
"About the black SUV."
Connor's stomach tightened.
"What black SUV?"
"The one that sat half a block down three mornings this week."
She pointed toward the intersection.
"Tinted windows."
"No front plate."
"I thought it belonged to one of your relatives because I saw that silver-haired woman near it on Thursday."
Connor climbed the steps.
"My mother?"
Mrs. Alvarez nodded.
"She didn't get in."
"She spoke to the driver through the passenger window."
"Then she walked toward your house."
Connor felt the hairs rise on his arms.
"Did you see the driver?"
"Only once."
Mrs. Alvarez narrowed her eyes in thought.
"Man."
"Maybe fifty."
"Dark hair with gray at the sides."
"Wore a suit even though it was hot."
Connor did not recognize the description.
Mrs. Alvarez disappeared inside and returned with her phone.
"My grandson installed one of those driveway cameras."
"It sees more street than yours."
She found the recording.
The black SUV appeared exactly where she described.
At 2:15 p.m. that afternoon, a man in a gray jacket got out.
His cap shadowed his face.
But before he walked toward Connor's house, he opened the rear door of the SUV.
For one second, the camera captured his profile.
Connor froze the image.
He knew the man.
Not well.
But enough.
"That's Neil Foster."
Mrs. Alvarez looked at him.
"Who?"
Connor barely heard her.
Neil Foster had been his father's estate attorney.
Six years earlier, Neil had sat across from Connor in Teresa's dining room and explained that Michael Bradley's estate was modest.
He had told Connor the medical bills consumed most of it.
He had handed Connor a thin folder and said Teresa would handle the remaining administrative details.
Connor had shaken his hand and thanked him.
Now that same man had photographed Connor's house and delivered Teresa's message.
Rachel's reaction was immediate.
"Do not contact him."
Connor had called her before leaving Mrs. Alvarez's porch.
"He handled Dad's estate."
"Which means if the probate records are false, he may know why."
"Exactly."
"And that is why you do not contact him."
Rachel's voice sharpened.
"If he is involved, you don't warn him about what we know."
By evening, Rachel had obtained the public probate docket from Michael's estate.
Neil Foster was listed as attorney of record.
Several filings bore his electronic signature.
One filing reported that Connor's inheritance had been distributed.
Another attached the acknowledgment Connor supposedly signed.
Rachel studied the dates.
"This was filed nine days after the money entered the joint account."
Samuel added quietly.
"And two days after Teresa withdrew twenty thousand."
Connor sat at the dining table again.
The room had become a war room.
The first birthday decorations were gone, replaced by binders, evidence bags, bank statements, and legal pads.
Amy came down after putting Frederick to sleep.
She looked at Neil's photograph.
"I've seen him."
Connor turned sharply.
"Where?"
Amy stared at the image.
"Here."
"When?"
"A few months ago."
Connor felt his pulse increase.
"Are you sure?"
"Yes."
Amy pointed toward the hallway.
"Your mother brought him into the office."
"She told me he was helping her with retirement paperwork."
Connor's mouth went dry.
"Did they go near the safe?"
Amy's face changed.
"I don't know."
Then she remembered something.
"Wait."
She walked quickly toward the kitchen junk drawer and pulled out a small spiral notebook.
Amy kept household notes in it because she claimed phone reminders disappeared too easily.
She flipped backward several months.
"March seventeenth."
Connor read the line.
TERESA + LAWYER HERE 2:30.
Underneath it Amy had written another note.
ASKED ME TO TAKE FREDERICK FOR WALK.
Connor stared at her.
"They wanted you out of the house."
Amy nodded slowly.
Rachel asked to see the security archive from that date.
Connor opened the cloud account.
The footage was gone.
Not expired.
Deleted.
Connor's system retained recordings for a year.
Only someone with administrator access could delete selected clips.
Until Friday, Teresa had possessed that access.
Connor looked at Amy.
"She erased it."
Amy sat down.
The sense of invasion returned in a new form.
Teresa had not simply visited too often.
She had used the privileges Connor gave her to create private spaces inside his own home.
Rachel asked Connor to export access logs from the security system.
He found them under advanced settings.
The logs showed an administrator login on March seventeenth at 4:11 p.m.
The login came from Teresa's phone.
A deletion followed two minutes later.
The next line was stranger.
A second user had been added that afternoon.
NFOSTER.
Connor stared at the screen.
"She gave him access to my security system."
Rachel was silent for several seconds.
"Change every password again."
"And tomorrow we move your documents off-site."
Samuel spoke next.
"I found something else tied to Foster."
He shared his screen.
Neil Foster's law firm had received three payments from Bradley Family Holdings.
Five thousand dollars.
Seven thousand five hundred.
And nine thousand.
All marked LEGAL CONSULTING.
Connor thought of the photograph on his door.
"He's still working for her."
Rachel corrected him.
"We know the company paid him."
"We don't yet know for what."
Connor appreciated her discipline even while it frustrated him.
She refused to let outrage become evidence.
The next morning, Mason called Rachel in a panic.
Someone had entered the storage unit overnight.
The lock had been cut.
Shelves were empty.
A desktop computer was missing.
So were several file boxes Mason had not taken to Rachel's office.
Connor met Mason at the storage facility.
Police were already there.
Mason looked pale.
"I should've taken everything."
Connor walked past the cut lock.
"What was left?"
"Old tax files."
"Tenant records."
"Some handwritten notes."
"And the company laptop."
Connor stopped.
"What was on the laptop?"
Mason swallowed.
"Emails."
"Between who?"
"Teresa and Foster."
Connor stared at him.
"Did you back them up?"
Mason looked toward the police officer photographing the door.
"Some."
"Where?"
Mason pulled his phone from his pocket.
"I forwarded a few to myself when I started getting suspicious."
He opened one.
The sender was Neil Foster.
The recipient was Teresa.
The subject line read PHASE TWO.
May you like
Connor read the first visible sentence.
Once Connor's equity is secured, Amy becomes the remaining obstacle.
