Page 60 of Shelter for Shay

But that didn’t mean she couldn’t do something.

She rose from the table slowly and grabbed her phone again. Her fingers hovered over Moose’s name, then moved to her favorites list. Her thumb landed on the contact labeled simply: Todd—Taxes + Lifesaver.

Todd wasn’t just her accountant. He was her best friend’s husband. A steady, numbers-minded genius who had always told her,If anything ever looks fishy, send it my way. I’ll smell it before the sharks do.

She didn’t call. He’d press and she’d cave.

Shay:Hey. Remember that company you were helping look into? Well, I don’t need you to do that anymore. I got all the answers I need. You can let Moose know. It’s a dead end. Oh, I found the receipts you need for the tax return. I’ll give them to Becca tonight. Thanks for everything.

A beat later, she grabbed a clean notebook from the drawer and scribbled the letter word-for-word, just in case the original disappeared.

This was a crazy game, and maybe Todd would come back with wild questions, and maybe no one was looking at her phone, but once he saw that note, he’d be calling Moose. That’s all she needed. A backdoor angle.

With a pair of tweezers, she slid the letter into a plastic Ziploc bag. She wasn’t trained in crime scene preservation, but she’d listened to Becca quote enough CSI shows to know not to leave fingerprints on something that felt like a threat.

She tucked the bag behind the fridge, wedging it between the appliance and the wall. Somewhere safe. Hidden. But close if she needed it.

Only then did she let herself breathe.

Her phone buzzed.

Todd:You okay?

She stared at the blinking cursor. Thank God he didn’t question more.

Shay:Just tired. Thanks, Todd. You're the best.

Her thumb hovered again over Moose’s name.

She wanted to hear his voice. Tell him everything. Let him carry the weight for her, as he always did.

But she couldn’t.

Not yet.

Instead, she typed something else. A kind of insurance.

She opened her email app, created a draft—no recipient—then uploaded a photo of the letter.

In the body, she wrote:

If anything happens to me, check the attached. Do not trust Blake Edmonds. Start with W.E.H. Holdings. I think everything ties back to that. And I think this goes deeper than just my mother’s death.

- Shay

Then she hit “Save Draft” and logged out of the account.

She could always send it later. Or delete it. But if someone found it after the fact—if she was silenced—there’d be a trail. A spark.

A fuse.

Shay looked out the window again, but she wasn’t shaking anymore.

Whoever sent that letter thought they’d backed her into a corner.

They forgot something critical.

Shay Whitaker grew up in the corners.