Page 78 of All the Ways You Save Me
I can see how important this is to him; I can hear it in the waver in his voice. This isn’t just about being free of Waylon anymore. It’s about finding the truth. “Okay, let’s go search Jason’s office.”
We put the boxes back where we found them and creep down the hall to Jason’s office.
“What are we looking for?” I ask, sliding Jason’s chair back. “Financial records?” I shake the mouse on his desk, and the computer monitor flickers on. “Jason is the CFO, so he’d have that kind of information.”
A password screen appears.
“Any guesses?” Garrett asks over my shoulder.
I know the password for Jason’s personal laptop, I’ve used it plenty of times when grading papers at his house. He uses a version of my name. I quickly typeMaddieSully424*and to my surprise, the home screen appears. It occurs to me that if Jason is involved in all of this, he’s been doing it right under my nose and never thought I’d find out. He must think I’m completely naïve. And I almost married him and became the cliché of a wife who never had a clue.
I click around until I find a document with the company’s financial records, and search accounts receivable, accountspayable, profits and losses. I’m not an expert, but nothing seems to be out of order.
“I don’t know, Garrett. If this company is a front business for shipping drugs and laundering money, then they’re probably really good at burying records under other records. It could take days to sort through this, and we’d probably need an accountant.”
Garrett sighs.
“I’m not sure this is going to tell us anything anyway,” I continue. “Even if we found something in here, all it would prove is that the company is hiding the money. Jason works for the company; he could claim to be an innocent employee.” I glance up at where Garrett is glaring at the spreadsheet over my shoulder. “He could actuallybean innocent employee.” More than anything, I want it to be true for Garrett’s sake. “Maybe the fact that his phone worked when mine didn’t doesn’t mean anything.” But even as I say the words, I know it’s more for Garrett’s benefit than because I actually believe it. There’s also the fact that Jason got Adam involved in this mess in the first place. And let him take the fall.
Garrett obviously doesn’t believe it either. “Let’s just poke around a little more.”
We open drawers and a cabinet, shuffling through paperwork and office supplies, but again, it all just looks like normal business stuff. I pull my head out of a closet and switch off my phone light, blinking at the realization that the room is getting lighter.
“The sun is coming up, and there might be a cleaning crew coming in. I don’t know if anyone comes in on weekends.” Layla almost always seems to be here when I stop by to see Jason, so maybe she comes in on weekends, too. Does she know about the drugs in the warehouse? These new revelations shift my view of everything. Did Jason and Layla really go to Mexico to tour an electronics factory, or was it to meet with people involved in allof this? My gaze drifts to the couch where I saw Jason and Layla straightening the cushions, and a tingling feeling comes over me.
I’ve had a few brief moments of wondering if I walked in on something suspicious that day. And maybe I did. But maybe it wasn’t what I thought. I lunge for the couch and pull the cushions aside, gasping when I find that the solid part underneath lifts up.
“Garrett, look.”
He hurries over as I open the hatch to reveal a box like the ones on the shelf in the warehouse with the squiggly red spider sitting on the corner.
“Whoa.” Garrett stares down at the box. I reach in to pick it up, and it’s much lighter than the other boxes—it only weighs maybe a few pounds, and the contents are much less secure. They rattle around as I move it to the desk. The tape isn’t very sticky, as if someone has opened and closed the box a bunch of times, and I pull it up. Inside, I find a single brick of cocaine and a wad of cash secured with a rubber band.
My gaze flies to Garrett’s. “The cocaine missing from the box,” I hiss.
He nods. “It must be.”
I notice a beat-up black-and-white composition notebook peeking out from under the cash, like the kind that kids have been using at Maple Ridge High since we were students there. I realize this one has probably been around since then because it has Jason’s name scribbled across the top along with the wordsAP Calculus.
“That’s weird,” Garrett muses. “Why does Jason have an old composition book from a decade ago?” He flips it open, his eyes surveying the numbers and letters written in Jason’s handwriting. “What is this?”
I recognize them right away. “Calculus equations.” I took this same class and struggled through differential equations,wishing I were reading a book instead. I flip another few pages until I get to the point where the calculations stop. I check the date at the top.
February 27.
That date is burned in my memory.
It’s the date that Adam died.
Underneath, I find scribbled notes with the words ~20 pounds=$950,000.The math may be simple, but that kind of money is huge. “Why would Jason have written this on the day you disappeared?”
Garrett’s face has gone pale. He props an arm on the desk as if he needs it to hold himself upright. “Twenty pounds is about how much cocaine went missing that day. And nine hundred and fifty thousand was what we estimated it was worth.”
Tucked in between the next pages, I find a stack of bank receipts. About three weeks after Adam died, Jason deposited $9,500. A week later, he deposited $9,500 more. And then again, a week after that. Eventually, the bank changed, but the deposits stayed the same. Understanding slowly dawns on me. There’s probably a limit to how much cash you can deposit in a bank at one time before they have to report it to the federal government.
I can tell it’s dawning on Garrett, too, because he slowly slides to the floor and props his forehead on his knees. I lunge out of my chair and wrap an arm around him.
“He—he set me up.” His voice sounds like there’s something lodged there, and he can barely choke the words out.
