Chapter 4 - THE THING INSIDE MR. BAMBOO
I left the meeting immediately.
Miriam objected.
Outside counsel objected.
Derek laughed.
“Go ask Mommy.”
I turned at the door.
“You stay here.”
“Or what?”
“Or security removes you.”
His smile vanished.
Twenty-five minutes later, I pulled into my parents’ driveway.
The fire pit had been cleaned.
Of course it had.
My mother, Carol, stood at the kitchen island with a plastic sandwich bag in front of her.
Inside was the black object.
I recognized it immediately.
Not a memory card.
A Bluetooth location tracker.
“What was this doing in Lucas’s panda?”
Mom shook her head.
“We thought you put it there.”
“I didn’t.”
“Maybe Amy did.”
My wife had died three years earlier.
Hearing Mom casually invoke her made something inside me harden.
“Amy is dead.”
“I know that.”
“Then don’t use her as an explanation.”
Mom looked away.
“Derek found it after you left.”
“How?”
“He went back through the fire.”
“To save the toys he had burned?”
She flinched.
“Virgil.”
“No. Explain.”
Mom sat down.
“Derek says Lucas was playing in Frank’s office yesterday.”
“Dad’s home office?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“He thinks Lucas might have picked up something.”
“What?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then why burn his toys?”
Mom’s silence told me more than her answer would have.
I stared.
“He wasn’t toughening Lucas up.”
Mom said nothing.
“He was searching his things.”
Her eyes filled with tears.
“Derek panicked.”
My stomach turned.
The cruelty at the barbecue had been real.
But it had also been cover.
“What was he looking for?”
“He said a drive.”
“What drive?”
“I don’t know.”
“Mom.”
She snapped:
“I DON’T KNOW.”
Then immediately covered her mouth.
I had rarely heard my mother yell.
For years, she handled family conflict by softening Dad’s cruelty into something everyone else was expected to tolerate.
Now she looked terrified.
I lowered my voice.
“What is Dad involved in?”
She sat down slowly.
“Hawthorne.”
“You knew.”
“Yes.”
“How much?”
“Not everything.”
“How much did you know?”
“That your father helped Peterson Tech when you were struggling.”
“And that he secretly took money back?”
“He called it reimbursement.”
“Twenty-two million dollars?”
Her face changed.
So Derek had told the truth about the amount.
Mom looked toward the window.
“I didn’t know it was that much.”
“What did Lucas take from Dad’s office?”
“I honestly don’t know.”
I pulled out my phone and called my son.
He was with his mother’s sister, Rachel, for the afternoon.
He answered excitedly.
“Dad!”
“Hey, buddy. Quick question.”
“Okay.”
“Yesterday at Grandpa’s house, did you go into his office?”
Silence.
Six-year-old silence.
The kind that means yes.
“I wasn’t touching things.”
“I’m not mad.”
Another pause.
“I was looking for tape.”
“For what?”
“Mr. Bamboo’s ear.”
My throat tightened.
The panda had started tearing near the seam that morning.
“Did you find anything?”
“Tape.”
“Anything else?”
“A little silver thing.”
Mom closed her eyes.
“What silver thing?”
“It looked like your computer thing.”
A USB drive.
“Where is it?”
“I put it in Mr. Bamboo’s zipper.”
My mother started crying.
The tracker had not mattered.
Derek had been searching for a USB drive Lucas accidentally hid inside the panda.
Then burned it.
“Lucas, are you sure?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay. You did nothing wrong.”
“Is Mr. Bamboo still burned?”
I swallowed.
“Yeah, buddy.”
He went quiet.
“Okay.”
Two small syllables.
More mature than any adult at yesterday’s barbecue.
After the call, I walked directly toward the backyard.
Mom followed.
“Virgil, Derek searched everything.”
“He was panicking.”
“He said the drive would melt.”
“Most would.”
“But?”
I looked at the cleaned fire pit.
“Industrial USB drives sometimes survive more than people think.”
We searched the ashes for nearly twenty minutes.
Nothing.
Then I noticed the garbage bin.
Fresh black bag.
Inside were barbecue plates.
Beer bottles.
Burned stuffing.
And part of Mr. Bamboo’s charred body.
My hands shook as I opened the torn zipper.
Something metal touched my finger.
A scorched silver USB drive.
Mom whispered:
“Oh God.”
Before I could answer, Dad’s truck entered the driveway.
Frank got out.
He saw the drive in my hand.
And stopped walking.
That reaction told me everything.
I raised it.
“Looking for this?”
My father’s face went white.
Then he said something I had never heard from him before.
“Virgil, please.”
Not an order.
Not a lecture.
May you like
A plea.
“Do not plug that into anything.”
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