Page 2 of Tracking Safety

Ellie stared at it. She’d locked herself out of her own office filing cabinet twice in the past year. Then she’d finally let one of her colleagues show her how to pick the lock. It hadn’t been hard.

She stared at the filing cabinet another second then made a decision. Her passport had to be in there. She just wanted to know for herself.

She found a letter opener and a paperclip. Then she got to work.

Just like at the office, it only took a minute for the lock to give.

Bingo!

She began thumbing through the files, looking for something with a label that might indicate “important documents” or the like.

No folders were marked that way.

But another file caught her eye.

It was labeled Operations in Roderick’s precise handwriting.

Her curiosity spiked.

She wasn’t sure why, but she grabbed it. Everything inside her told her to stop.

Instead, she set the folder on the desk and opened it.

The first page contained a list of names. Twenty, maybe twenty-five of them, each one followed by a dollar amount. The figures were large—larger than anything that belonged in a legitimate import business. They were too round, too clean.

She didn’t recognize any of the names listed, but that didn’t mean anything. Roderick had hundreds of business contacts she’d never met.

But something about the list left her unsettled.

She turned the page.

More names and figures appeared. But these were different. They were smaller amounts and more frequent dates. They were listed in a column that looked less like payments going out and more like collections coming in.

Someone’s initials were scribbled beside several of the names.

R.B.

Roderick Barone.

She turned the page again.

An address on the south side of the city was written there. Below it, a name had been circled in red ink, and a date had been added—four weeks ago.

She turned the last page.

Photographs had been shoved at the back of the file. Eight of them, each printed on plain paper.

They were taken from a distance with a long lens. A man coming out of a restaurant. A woman unlocking a car in a parking garage. An older man walking a dog along the lakefront, caught mid-stride.

None of the people were looking at the camera. None of them knew they were being watched or photographed.

She studied the images.

These weren’t business photographs, nor were they surveillance photos from a security system or images from a corporate file.

These were pictures of ordinary people going about their ordinary lives, taken when they weren’t aware.

Out of curiosity, she pulled out her phone and typed in one of the names.