Tracing Sarah

Sarah Lin wasn’t a casualty; she was the architect’s assistant. The realization coated Eleanor’s veins in ice. If Sarah handled the initial shell company finances, she possessed the exact forensic link the IRS needed to dismantle the Vance trust.

Eleanor angled her laptop screen away from the diner's overhead glare. She typed Sarah’s old social security number into her firm’s skip-tracing portal.

The search algorithm crawled through a decade of dead ends. Then, a rupture in the data. A legal name change filed in 2016. Sarah Lin was now Sarah Halder.

Eleanor fed the new surname into a commercial registry database. Tax IDs populated the grid. A hit surfaced in Portland, Oregon. *The Flour & Forge Bakery.* Sole proprietorship.

She pulled her phone and dialed the three contact numbers listed for the LLC.

The first number rang into a disconnected tone. The second gave a harsh, automated out-of-service message. The third went straight to a generic voicemail. Arthur Pendelton had built a digital moat around the woman. Phone calls wouldn't breach it.

Eleanor opened an airline portal. She booked a red-eye flight out of O'Hare, departing in three hours.

She packed up the laptop and drove back to her townhouse. The security system glowed a steady red, a fragile barrier against Arthur's impending injunction. Chloe sat curled on the sofa, her eyes fixed on the blank television.

Eleanor couldn't take a minor across state lines with a custody petition hovering in the morning docket. That was textbook kidnapping. She needed a proxy. Someone outside the immediate blast radius of the Vance estate.

David arrived twenty minutes after her desperate call. His shoulders slumped under a worn canvas jacket. The hollow exhaustion in his eyes mirrored Eleanor's own.

"I'm going to Oregon," Eleanor said, shoving a spare set of keys into his hand. "Arthur is filing the emergency papers tomorrow. If I don't get this witness, Harrison takes full custody by noon."

David looked at Chloe, then back at Eleanor. His jaw tightened. "You're kicking a hornet's nest, El."

"The nest is already open." Eleanor grabbed a small duffel bag and stuffed a change of clothes inside. "Keep the doors locked. Don't answer for anyone. If Arthur or Harrison show up, you dial 911 and you record everything on your phone."

"I've got her," David said softly. He stepped past Eleanor, placing a gentle, protective hand on Chloe's shoulder. The teenager leaned into his side, finding a fraction of comfort in the familiar uncle.

Eleanor hoisted her tote bag over her shoulder, the weight of her mother's journals pressing against her ribs. She was leaving her only family with the man who had warned her to stop digging just hours ago. But he was the only option left on the board.

She stepped into the narrow mudroom, her hand gripping the brass knob of the front door.

The entryway mirror caught the movement in the living room behind her. Sarah said she'd never met Richard. But in the photograph, his arm was around her waist. Wait. No. David agreed to keep them safe, but as Eleanor turned the knob, his reflection betrayed a different allegiance. He was slipping a cheap, plastic burner phone into his jacket pocket.