Children's gifts.
Kitchen appliances.
And, beneath a workbench, a garbage bag.
Inside were Grant's photographs.
Most were ruined.
Grant stared at them.
He didn't speak.
One photograph had survived.
Hannah was standing on the beach.
Sophie was beside her.
Grant took it carefully.
He looked at the muddy mark across Hannah's face.
Then he looked at Sheila.
For the first time, she seemed less like a thief.
She looked terrified.
Camille placed several photographs on the table.
"How long have you been stealing packages?"
Sheila didn't answer.
"Mrs. Marlowe."
"About seven months."
"Why?"
"Money."
"How much?"
"At first? Twenty dollars. Fifty."
"And later?"
Sheila looked down.
"More."
"Who paid you?"
"I don't know."
"Name."
"CarterLane."
"Real name?"
"I never knew it."
"How did he contact you?"
"Online."
"Why would someone pay you hundreds of dollars for ordinary packages?"
Sheila swallowed.
"I thought he ran a resale business."
Camille leaned forward.
"Did you ever open the packages?"
"Sometimes."
"Did you ever see drugs?"
"No."
"Did you ever transport sealed packages to another location?"
Sheila hesitated.
"Yes."
"How many?"
"Six."
Grant looked at Camille.
Six.
The number matched the suspicious shipments already under investigation.
Camille asked the next question.
"Where did you take them?"
Sheila described an abandoned movie theater on the west side of Bellmont.
A parking lot.
A locked storage area.
A man in a maintenance jacket.
She remembered one detail.
He limped.
Camille wrote it down.
"Anything else?"
"He never showed his face."
"How did you get paid?"
"Cash."
"How did you know which package to take?"
"My messages."
"Who sent them?"
"CarterLane."
Camille looked at Lena.
The detective understood immediately.
They weren't dealing with a simple porch thief.
Someone had built a system around her.
And now that system knew the police were getting close.
Sheila had never thought of herself as a criminal.
That was the first thing Agent Rhodes discovered.
Sheila thought criminals were people who carried weapons.
People who broke into banks.
People who sold drugs in alleys.
Sheila stole boxes.
She told herself there was a difference.
At first, there had been.
The first package she took contained a coffee machine.
She had seen it sitting outside an empty house.
She waited.
Nobody came.
She picked it up.
That evening, she sold it online.
She made eighty dollars.
Then another package disappeared.
Then another.
She told herself the owners would receive replacements.
She told herself companies could afford it.
She told herself nobody was seriously hurt.
Then someone contacted her.
CarterLane.
The buyer offered strange prices.
Four hundred dollars for a box of inexpensive household goods.
Six hundred for a small appliance.
Nine hundred for a carton of phone accessories.
She thought he was running a discount warehouse.
She didn't ask too many questions.
The money was too good.
Soon his messages became specific.
Birch Street. 2:15.
Blue house. Take sealed.
Don't open.
Leave the rest.
She followed the instructions.
She never met him.
Cash appeared inside lockers.
Sometimes envelopes were taped beneath benches.
Sometimes a hotel key card arrived with a message.
Sheila believed she was stealing retail merchandise.
Then one afternoon she noticed something strange.
A package was unusually heavy.
She opened it.
Inside was a stack of sealed containers.
She didn't recognize them.
She immediately closed the box.
She messaged CarterLane.
What is this?
The answer came three minutes later.
Don't ask.
She should have stopped.
Instead, she asked one more question.
Is it legal?
The reply was simple.
Do you want the money?
She never asked again.
That was the moment her excuses ended.
She might not have known exactly what she was carrying.
But she knew enough to understand that something was wrong.
Now federal investigators were reconstructing every delivery.
The notebooks found in Sheila's basement were unexpectedly valuable.
She had documented everything.
Dates.
Addresses.
Times.
Payments.
Descriptions.
Even camera locations.
She had done it because she didn't want to be caught.
Ironically, her fear had created the map investigators needed.
Camille spread the notebooks across a conference table.
"Look at the timing."
Lena leaned closer.
Every suspicious shipment arrived between 1:45 and 2:30.
Sheila usually collected it within twenty minutes.
Then the box moved to the abandoned theater.
Within four hours, another vehicle arrived.
The same route appeared again and again.
"Who owns the theater?" Lena asked.
Camille answered.
"A private security company."
"Name?"
"Northstar Protective."
Lena went still.
"Who runs it?"
"Peter Dane."
Lena's expression changed.
Peter Dane was the brother of Captain Russell Dane, Lena's supervisor.
Camille noticed.
"You know him?"
"He's my captain's brother."
The room became silent.
Suddenly, several things made sense.
Why surveillance around the theater was sophisticated.
Why delivery thefts near certain warehouses had never received much attention.
Why police patrols had been redirected.
Why the traffickers seemed to know when investigators were coming.
But suspicion was not proof.
Camille warned everyone.
"We do not accuse anyone until we have evidence."
They examined financial records.
Northstar Protective had several suspicious consulting clients.
One was a logistics company.
Another was a warehouse operator.
A third was a shell corporation.
Money moved between them.
Small payments.
Large transfers.
Invoices for nonexistent services.
The investigators followed the money for weeks.
Then they found something else.
A phone number connected to CarterLane had once been used to contact Northstar employees.
The account was registered under a fake identity.
But its recovery email belonged to an employee named Devon Reese.
Devon worked at the delivery warehouse that had handled Grant's package.
Investigators reviewed the warehouse cameras.
Grant's package arrived correctly.
His tax binders were inside.
Thirty-eight minutes later, Devon entered a restricted room.
He emerged carrying the same box.
It was impossible to see exactly what he had done.
But when the package left the warehouse, its weight had changed.
The next question was simple.
Where was Devon?
He disappeared before investigators could question him.
His apartment was empty.
His car was abandoned near a bus terminal.