Chapter 8 - The Password Was RebeccaMarcy refused to give anyone the password.
Even Agent Pierce.
“I need legal advice first.”
Natalie nodded.
“That is exactly the correct answer.”
I almost smiled.
My daughter was beginning to sound safer.
Her attorney reviewed the situation and arranged a proper evidence-transfer process.
Marcy then revealed something nobody knew.
The stolen blue drive was not the only copy.
She had created two.
The second one was hidden inside a locked drawer at the community college where she took evening accounting classes.
The password was a name.
Rebecca.
Her childhood best friend who died in a car accident at sixteen.
Dustin would never have guessed it.
Federal agents collected the second drive through documented chain of custody.
This time there was no shipping store.
No unsecured gap.
Within days, investigators began understanding what Marcy had copied.
The records were bad.
But not in the way everyone expected.
Yes, they showed cash-heavy businesses and suspicious transfers linked to Victor Hale’s companies.
But many of the largest questionable payments did not flow upward to Victor.
They flowed outward through entities controlled by Evan Hale and—indirectly—Dustin.
Fake equipment purchases.
Fighter sponsorship companies.
Construction invoices.
Security subcontractors.
Dustin and Evan had been skimming from Victor.
Millions over several years.
That gave Dustin an additional motive to recover the files.
If Victor discovered what his nephew and son were doing, Dustin would lose more than financial protection.
He could become a liability.
Marcy had unknowingly copied evidence of an internal theft.
Agent Pierce said:
“This does not erase whatever Victor’s companies may have done separately. But it changes why Dustin was desperate.”
Karen looked toward Marcy.
“He wasn’t afraid she’d expose his uncle.”
“Not primarily.”
Natalie nodded.
“He was afraid she’d expose him.”
Then another file emerged.
A spreadsheet labeled:
Fighter Development Expenses
Inside were payments to doctors, promoters, travel, and “performance support.”
One name appeared repeatedly.
Ray Madsen.
The coach had told us he was only looking away.
The books suggested he had been paid too.
When confronted, Ray admitted receiving cash bonuses tied to events he knew were suspiciously funded.
Again, not mastermind.
Not innocent.
He began cooperating more fully.
Then he disclosed one final thing.
Dustin had been planning to leave town.
Not after Marcy’s assault.
Before it.
He already had $240,000 in a hidden account.
A passport application expedited.
A rental apartment reserved in Costa Rica under another name.
He intended to flee after taking one final transfer.
Marcy’s copied records threatened that plan.
May you like
The beating was not simply about control over a girlfriend.
It was about escape money.
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