Later that afternoon, Dana called Lena and explained that Felix had acknowledged accepting unauthorized work.
She did not disclose details she could not share.
Lena asked whether the visits had stopped.
“We’ve contacted the companies involved,” Dana said.
“They’ve been told not to enter properties without the owners’ authorization.”
“What about Celia?”
“The investigation is still open.”
Lena thanked her.
She was putting the phone down when someone knocked at the front door.
Celia stood on the porch holding a cardboard box.
For a moment, Lena thought she had come to return something.
Then Celia lifted the box and pushed it toward her.
“You wanted to know what all this was about,” she said.
“Here.”
Lena did not take it.
“What’s inside?”
“The things people gave me because they trusted me.”
Celia’s voice shook.
“Meeting notes, photographs, complaints, everything.”
“Why are you bringing them here?”
“Because you’re going to make them all think I’m a monster.”
Lena kept her hands at her sides.
“I haven’t asked anyone to think that.”
“You don’t have to.”
Celia set the box on the porch and stepped backward.
“Do what you want with it.”
She turned and walked away before Lena could answer.
Lena looked at the box without opening it.
She called Dana.
“Celia left something on my porch,” she said.
“I don’t know what’s in it, and I don’t want to become responsible for sorting it.”
Dana asked her to leave the box untouched until an officer arrived.
Lena did.
Chapter Thirteen R: The Box on the Porch
Dana arrived with a second officer just before sunset.
She photographed the box where Celia had left it and asked Lena to describe the exchange.
Lena repeated Celia’s words as accurately as she could.
Dana asked whether Celia had threatened her.
“Not directly,” Lena said.
“She sounded desperate.”
The officer carried the box to the patrol car after documenting its condition.
Lena watched from the doorway.
“What happens to the people whose information is inside?” she asked.
“We will handle it as part of the investigation,” Dana replied.
“Some of those people may not know she kept their complaints.”
Dana nodded.
“That’s one of the things we’ll have to check.”
When the car left, Lena closed the door and sat at the kitchen table.
The house felt unusually quiet.
She had imagined Celia as a woman who always had a plan.
The box suggested that Celia had begun losing control of the consequences of her own decisions.
That did not make the danger smaller.
It made her next decision harder to predict.
