Leah had already warned us not to assume the changes were evidence of wrongdoing.
Companies reorganized for ordinary reasons.
The oddity was the way Pike appeared to know what we would reject before we rejected it.
Daniel showed me an email sent thirty minutes after our private meeting about severance.
Pike proposed removing an employee-protection clause we had not yet sent to anyone.
I stared at the timestamp.
The message followed the conversation that took place beneath the camera in my living room.
Daniel had dismissed the timing at first.
Now he could not.
He told me one of the employees, Rosa, had been offered a job by an unknown recruiter who asked whether the shop could operate without Daniel.
Another worker, Anton, received a similar call.
I asked whether the recruiter had named Pike.
Neither had.
We called Leah and gave her the new information.
She arranged to interview the employees separately so their recollections would not influence each other.
On the drive home Daniel finally said what we had both been thinking.
“Someone is trying to buy the shop before we understand who wants it.”
I watched rain thread down the windshield.
The camera had invaded my house, but the damage might reach the people who depended on our father’s business.
That made the investigation feel larger than my own fear.
Chapter 24: What Paul Heard
Paul Emerson lived two houses beyond Patricia.
His front yard held a wooden bench built by his late wife, and he polished it every spring.
He asked me over because he remembered a conversation from the previous winter.
Patricia had visited him with brochures for emergency alert systems.
She suggested a subscription that would let a private service monitor daily routines and notify a contact if the system detected an unusual absence.
Paul declined because his daughter already checked on him every evening.
Patricia became irritated and said people who refused preventive care created emergencies for everyone else.
Paul remembered the company name on the brochure.
It was HavenScope Services.
I had never heard of it.
He had saved the pamphlet among his insurance documents because the price seemed unusually high.
I photographed it with his permission.
The address listed a small office suite in a business park outside the city.
The brochure promised convenience but did not describe any government affiliation.
Paul said Patricia had presented herself as a volunteer coordinator working with the company.
He asked whether his refusal might have made him a target.
