Those were his exact words.”
David and I looked at each other.
Keep hard copies.
Beth saw the note on the table and went still.
“That’s what she wrote?”
I didn’t answer.
Beth’s breathing changed.
“Then she knew.”
“Knew what?”
Beth looked at me.
“That he was searching.”
The next page in Megan’s file contained a list of dates.
David had marked several with small tabs.
Three were dinners at Mitchell and Beth’s house.
Beside the first, Megan had written: Password reset next morning.
Beside the second: Bank alert missing from phone.
Found in deleted folder.
Beside the third: Security settings changed again.
And beneath all three dates:
If anything changes after dinner at their place again, it isn’t random.
Beth stared at the page.
“I invited her those nights.”
I felt anger rise so quickly that I had to press my palms against the table.
“Why?”
“Because Mitchell asked me to.
I thought he was trying to repair things with her.
They’d been arguing about family finances, and he kept saying he wanted everyone to stop fighting.”
“And while you kept Megan occupied?”
Beth’s eyes filled.
“I didn’t know.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“No.
I expect you to check.
That’s what Megan would have done.”
That answer stopped me.
David opened the folder to a page I hadn’t seen.
It was a simple timeline Megan had built from her own records.
Dinner at Mitchell’s.
Unauthorized account activity afterward.
Dinner at Mitchell’s.
Security change.
Dinner at Mitchell’s.
Another attempted transfer.
She hadn’t accused anyone in the file.
She had done something more dangerous to the person responsible.
She had documented a pattern.
“There’s more,” David said.
He showed me printed notifications from Megan’s accounts and access logs she had saved.
Several entries occurred when she had written that she was away from home or at work.
Others appeared during the hours after those dinners.
“Can these identify whoever accessed them?” I asked.
“Not by themselves,” David said.
“But they establish timing.
Megan was trying to preserve enough that investigators could compare the records later.”
Beth rubbed her thumb against her wedding ring.
“Mitchell knew some of her passwords.”
