Chapter Five – Dead Ends

 Janet lit her third cigarette of the morning on the balcony, ash drifting into the cold Toronto air. She had Evelyn Shaw’s name now, a son’s voice cracking as he described what the scam had done to his mother. But she needed more. She needed to trace the scammer’s footprint — not just the victim’s.

She opened her contacts list and dialed a number she hadn’t used in a while.

“Brown,” a gruff voice answered. “Been a long time.”

“Too long, Luft,” Janet said. “You still digging around in Edmonton?”

“Born to. Why?”

A faint smile crossed her face. Lorne Luft was the kind of reporter who never went away. Fair-skinned, husky, about five-ten, with the build of a farm boy who’d never entirely lost his shoulders. At forty-something, he dressed like he’d rolled out of bed and gone straight to work — jeans, untucked shirt, sometimes a jacket if he remembered. But his eyes missed nothing, and his bylines in the Edmonton Journal carried the weight of a man who had outlasted half the newsroom.

Janet cut to the chase. “I’ve got a name. Evelyn Shaw. Edmonton woman scammed fifteen years ago. Died a few years back. The scammer says she pulled her money from a branch on Jasper Avenue. I need to know if anyone at that bank remembers an employee who quit around the same time. Someone who might’ve known too much.”

“You think one of their own ran the play?”

“I don’t know. But I need to know if there’s a trail. You’re on the ground there. Can you ask?”

Lorne chuckled. “You always did call me for the thankless jobs.”

“Because you get answers,” Janet said, exhaling smoke into the wind. “You still owe me for covering your ass on that pipeline piece.”

“Fair point,” he said. “Alright. I’ll poke around.”

The Jasper Avenue branch was bright with new paint and humming with customers when Lorne pushed through the glass doors that afternoon. He looked like any other guy in line — broad-shouldered, jeans, a well-worn leather jacket. He leaned on the counter, flashing his press badge only after a clerk started fidgeting under his questions.

“Fifteen years ago, a customer named Evelyn Shaw pulled money here. A lot of money,” he said evenly. “I’m looking to find if anyone remembers a staff member who left suddenly afterward.”

The clerk shook her head, apologetic. “Sorry, sir. Most of us weren’t even here then. Staff moves around constantly.”

He tried two more employees, one of them a manager with a smile too polished to be useful. No one remembered. Faces changed too fast in banking.

Not satisfied, he called the bank’s central office, angling for Human Resources. The voice on the other end was smooth, bureaucratic, and immovable.

“I’m sorry, sir, but we cannot disclose employee records, past or present. Privacy regulations.”

Lorne pressed. “I’m not asking for social insurance numbers. Just a name, someone who left the Jasper branch around 2010.”

The HR rep hesitated, then hardened. “Even if such records exist, sir, that information is not available to the public.”

What he really heard was: we don’t want to bother digging through old files for you.

That evening, he called Janet back. She was sitting with a drink in hand when her phone buzzed.

“No luck,” Lorne said flatly. “Branch staff cycle through like bus routes. Nobody’s been there long enough to remember. Central HR gave me the privacy wall. My guess? Even if they could look, they wouldn’t waste the time.”

Janet stared into her glass, the whiskey untouched. “So we’re stuck.”

“For now,” Lorne said. “But I’ll keep my ear to the ground. You know how it is — someone always remembers something. Just not the first time you ask.”

When the call ended, Janet stepped onto the balcony, lit another cigarette, and whispered into the smoke, “You’re still hiding, aren’t you?”

She pictured the woman behind the voice on her burner app — the calm, practiced tone that had pulled Evelyn Shaw into silence and shame.

The green dot on the screen waited, glowing in the dark.

That evening, she relayed Lorne’s report to her father over their kitchen table. Edward listened, patient as always, sipping his scotch while Janet vented her frustration.

“They move staff around like chess pieces, Dad. Nobody remembers Evelyn, nobody remembers who worked there. HR slammed the door in our faces. It’s like the trail’s gone cold before I’ve even started.”

Her father leaned back in his chair, eyes sharp even behind the thick glasses. “Janet, you’re still early in the game. You want this woman to hand you the truth all at once. She won’t. But each time she tells you another so-called triumph, she’ll let something slip — a detail, a habit, a name half-hidden. Over time, you’ll put the pieces together.”

Janet stared at him, cigarette trembling between her fingers. “And if she never slips?”

Edward smiled faintly. “Everyone slips. Even the best liars. My job on the bench was to sit still long enough for the cracks to show. Yours is no different.”

She drew on her cigarette, the ember flaring. Her father’s calm certainty settled into her bones.

When she turned back to her phone that night, the green dot on Threema seemed less like a wall and more like a doorway she would eventually pry open — one careless word at a time.