"He created three new accounts after you blocked the originals."
Her jaw tightened. "That's just Travis being Travis."
"That's fixation."
"It's pathetic. There's a difference."
There was. But the line between them was thinner than most people wanted to believe. I filed it and moved on.
THE BOX WAS WAITINGoutside her door when I went to check the hallway at 0700.
Plain cardboard. No return address. No postage. Hand-delivered. I stopped Charlie from touching it, pulled on gloves,and opened it on the kitchen counter while she watched from three feet away, arms crossed, coffee forgotten.
Photos. Dozens of them.
Printed on quality photo stock: heavy, glossy, professional grade. Every one of them had been shredded. Not carelessly, either. Cut into even strips, then cross-cut into confetti. Arranged in the box like a mosaic of destruction.
Charlie reached past me and picked up a fragment. Her fingers were steady, but her face wasn't.
"These are mine," she said. "My photos. From my archive." She turned the piece, studying the sliver of image visible. "This is from the Kiser story. And this one —" She picked up another. "This is the mayor's affair. Two years ago."
She dug deeper, sorting through the confetti with hands that shook slightly despite her best efforts. "They cherry-picked. These are my best shots, the ones that broke the biggest stories. Someone went through my entire archive, selected specific images, had them printed on expensive stock, and then shredded them."
The message was clear.I can get to everything you care about.
"Your drives," I said. "The ones that were copied during the break-in."
"Had to be. The cloud backups are encrypted. The copies at Morty's office are locked in a safe." She stared at the ruined photos. "They downloaded my archive ten days ago. Then they took the time to go through it, pick the photos that mattered most, have them printed, and destroy them."
The effort involved was what made my stomach drop. This wasn't rage. This wasn't impulsive. Someone with resources and patience had spent days turning her best work into scrap. Destroying the prints accomplished nothing tactically. The point was making her know they could.
Planning and budget and follow-through. That profile didn't match a heartbroken IT guy or a drunk socialite drowning in debt.
I photographed everything. Bagged the box. Called Cass.
"New threat delivered to her door. Shredded photos from her stolen archive. Quality print job, cross-cut. No postage. Hand delivery."
"Someone's spending money," Cass said, his voice flat in a way that meant he was already calculating.
"And time. This took planning."
"I'll put June on it. She's already running the background deep-dives. This tightens the profile: resources, access to her digital files, follow-through."
June. Juniper Park, Heartline's COO. Ex-Interpol, financial crimes. If anyone could trace the money trail behind this harassment campaign, it was her.
"Copy that. I'm also sending Travis Yount's updated profile. He's low-probability, but I want eyes on his movements."
"Done. Keep her close, Knight."
I hung up and found Charlie at the counter, piecing fragments together like a jigsaw puzzle. Her jaw was set. Eyes dry. Focused.
"We should go through the suspect list again," she said. "Somebody just invested serious effort to scare me."
We sat at her kitchen table, case files spread between us, and she worked through it like the investigator she'd never admit she was.
"Walsh has the motive and the resources." She tapped his file. "But he's been making public appearances all week. The comeback tour, the schmoozing, the Valentine's Ball prep. Would a politician trying to rebuild his image risk this kind of exposure? If anyone connected him to a harassment campaign against a journalist, his career's finished for good."
"Unless the career is already finished," I said. "And he's playing for different stakes."
