Chapter 8
The person who destroyed Cody's portfolio made one mistake.
They underestimated him.
He stared at the empty folder for ten minutes.
Then wiped his face.
“I still have the cards.”
I looked at the hundreds of index cards inside his backpack.
Characters.
Faces.
Scenes.
Ideas.
Years of work in fragments.
“You can rebuild?”
“Not everything.”
His voice trembled.
“But enough.”
Patrick came into the room.
When he saw the email, something hardened in him.
“I'm done.”
He called Rebecca.
She called investigators.
The access logs showed Cody's cloud account had been opened using an IP address linked to the Bannon estate.
But Malcolm was already in custody when it happened.
Only a few people still had access.
Maureen.
Dean's wife.
Two longtime employees.
And Malcolm's housekeeper.
I wanted to suspect none of them.
Then Maureen disappeared.
Patrick went silent when he heard.
“No.”
Her phone was off.
Her apartment empty.
Investigators found her car near the Bannon estate.
For three horrible hours, everyone assumed she'd run.
Then Maureen called me.
Not Patrick.
Me.
“Jillian.”
She was crying.
“Where are you?”
“Don't tell Patrick.”
“Where are you?”
“I'm at Dad's house.”
My heart slammed.
“Why?”
“I found the person who's been helping him.”
“Who?”
She whispered a name.
“Dean's wife, Claire.”
I closed my eyes.
Claire had barely spoken throughout any family gathering.
Quiet.
Polite.
Forgettable.
Exactly the kind of person nobody watched.
Maureen continued.
“She's here.”
“Get out.”
“I can't.”
“Why?”
“I locked myself in Dad's study.”
I heard banging through the phone.
Then Claire's voice.
“Maureen!”
I called 911 on another phone.
“Stay away from the door.”
“I found a laptop.”
“What laptop?”
“Dad's.”
The banging stopped.
That was somehow worse.
Maureen whispered, “There are files on Cody.”
My stomach turned.
“What kind?”
“School records. Photos. Applications.”
Patrick had entered the room.
He heard.
His face drained.
Then Maureen said, “Oh my God.”
“What?”
“There are files on all of us.”
Police reached the house seven minutes later.
Claire tried leaving through the rear garden.
She was arrested.
Maureen came out holding the laptop against her chest.
What investigators found ended Malcolm's remaining control.
He had documented everyone.
Employees.
Relatives.
Business partners.
He kept secrets like currency.
Affairs.
Debts.
Addictions.
Tax problems.
Private medical bills.
Anything useful.
Anything that could become leverage.
Patrick sat beside me as Rebecca described it.
“He didn't build loyalty,” I whispered.
“No,” Rebecca said. “He built dependence.”
Claire eventually admitted she had accessed Cody's online accounts.
Malcolm had instructed her weeks earlier to interfere with any application that could take Cody away from Connecticut.
She also admitted sending the fake text pretending Cody had been found.
The anonymous email came from her too.
Cody listened from across the room.
Then he asked, “Why did she care where I went to college?”
Rebecca answered carefully.
“She says Malcolm paid her.”
Cody laughed once.
A sad, stunned sound.
“My future had a price.”
I moved toward him.
He shook his head.
“No. I know what you said.”
He breathed deeply.
“I'm not property.”
“Exactly.”
He turned to Patrick.
“Can we go home?”
Patrick hesitated.
Our house had been searched.
Our trust had been damaged.
But investigators had arrested everyone believed to pose an immediate threat.
“Yes,” Patrick said.
“If your mom agrees.”
The fact that he asked mattered.
“I agree.”
We returned two days later.
The house looked exactly the same.
That hurt.
The cereal bowls.
Cody's shoes near the stairs.
A grocery list on the refrigerator.
Normal life had been sitting there waiting for us.
I stood in the kitchen and cried.
Patrick did not touch me until I reached for him.
Then he held me.
“I am sorry.”
“I know.”
“I'll keep saying it.”
“I know.”
“I don't expect you to fix this quickly.”
That was the first apology that truly reached me.
Cody spent the next week rebuilding his portfolio.
We worked around him.
Patrick scanned cards.
I organized files.
Ruth brought food.
Maureen came one afternoon carrying Shawn's old sketchbook.
“I found this in his apartment.”
Inside was a drawing Cody had made when he was nine.
Shawn had kept it.
On the back he'd written:
Kid sees people better than any of us.
Cody cried.
Maureen cried.
Even Patrick turned away.
The night before the deadline, Cody finished his final short film.
It was about a boy living inside a giant clock whose family insisted he become one of the gears.
Instead, he opened the clock door and discovered an entire world outside.
When the film ended, nobody spoke.
Then Patrick whispered, “Send it.”
Cody's hand hovered over the button.
“What if I don't get in?”
I squeezed his shoulder.
“Then you make the next thing.”
He smiled.
And clicked.
SUBMITTED.
We cheered so loudly the neighbors probably heard.
For the first time since Shawn died, Cody looked like himself.
The next morning Rebecca called.
Malcolm had agreed to a plea negotiation on several financial charges.
But he refused responsibility for Shawn's death.
Dean's statement was still the key.
Patrick listened quietly.
“What happens now?”
“A trial may still happen on the remaining charges.”
“And Cody?”
“He won't need to testify unless something changes.”
Relief filled the room.
Then Rebecca added, “There is something else.”
Patrick put the phone on speaker.
“Federal investigators found a new file on Malcolm's laptop.”
“What file?”
Rebecca paused.
“A recording.”
My stomach tightened.
“Of what?”
“Shawn's final confrontation with Malcolm.”
Patrick stopped breathing.
Rebecca's voice softened.
“And Patrick, you need to prepare yourself.”
May you like
“Why?”
“Because Shawn says something about your mother's death.”
