Chapter 6
I couldn’t speak.
Mark repeated it.
“Your father survived the initial crash.”
David grabbed the phone.
“You’re lying.”
“No.”
“Where is my father?”
“Safe for the moment.”
“If you hurt him—”
“I need Hannah to listen.”
I took the phone.
“What happened after the crash?”
“Your father’s car went off the road shortly after midnight.”
“I know.”
“What you don’t know is that a truck driver found him alive.”
My knees weakened.
“He called 911?”
“He tried.”
“What does that mean?”
“Someone arrived first.”
I looked at David.
“Who?”
“That’s the question.”
The line went dead.
Police traced the call.
Burner phone.
No useful location.
I stood beside the lake, staring at water my father had once skipped stones across.
Alive after the crash.
All these years, I had pictured him dying instantly.
I had told myself he never felt fear.
Never suffered.
Now that comfort was gone.
David stood beside me.
“I didn’t know.”
“You keep saying that.”
“It’s true.”
“You knew Charles called before police notified anyone.”
“Yes.”
“You knew Dad was investigating him.”
“Yes.”
“You knew there was a ledger.”
“Yes.”
“And somehow you never thought his death might be murder?”
“I did.”
I turned.
“Then why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because I was scared.”
“For yourself.”
“For you.”
I laughed.
“You keep calling lies protection.”
He looked down.
“You sound like Laura.”
That hit him.
Good.
A detective approached.
“We found something at the cabin.”
Inside, officers had removed a loose floorboard beneath an old cabinet.
Under it was a plastic folder.
Old newspaper clippings.
Photographs.
Copies of bank statements.
And a cassette tape.
David stared at it.
“My father hid this.”
There was a handwritten label.
MARCH 14.
The date my father died.
The cabin had an ancient cassette player in a closet.
Police photographed everything before allowing the tape to be played.
Static filled the room.
Then Robert Miller’s younger voice.
“Tom, if you’re hearing this, call me immediately.”
My father’s voice answered.
“You said Charles knows.”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“I don’t know.”
“Someone talked.”
“David?”
There was a long pause.
My stomach twisted.
Robert said, “I don’t think so.”
My father responded, “That wasn’t an answer.”
David closed his eyes.
The recording continued.
Robert said, “David has been meeting Charles without telling you.”
I turned toward him.
He went pale.
My father’s voice sharpened.
“Why?”
“He says he’s trying to buy us time.”
“That’s not his decision.”
“I know.”
“Where is he now?”
“Harbor.”
The tape clicked.
A second recording began.
This one was later.
My father sounded angry.
“David, you had no right.”
David’s younger voice came through the speaker.
“I was trying to stop this before it got worse.”
“You gave him information.”
“I gave him fake account numbers.”
“You told him we had evidence.”
“I had to make him believe I could negotiate.”
“You told him about the ledger?”
Silence.
Then David said, “No.”
My father answered, “Look me in the eye and say that.”
The tape ended.
Everyone stared at David.
I could barely breathe.
“You met Charles.”
“Yes.”
“You told him Dad had evidence.”
“Yes.”
“Did you tell him about the ledger?”
“No.”
“Dad didn’t believe you.”
“I know.”
“Should I?”
David’s eyes filled.
“I never told Charles where it was because I didn’t know.”
“But you told him enough to put my father in danger.”
“Yes.”
My hand moved before I thought.
I slapped him.
The sound cracked through the cabin.
Nobody stopped me.
David didn’t raise a hand.
“I deserved that.”
“Don’t tell me what you deserve.”
Tears blurred my vision.
“My father trusted you.”
“I know.”
“He made you my guardian on paper.”
“Yes.”
“He trusted you with everything.”
“Yes.”
“And you betrayed him.”
David whispered, “Yes.”
I walked outside before I did something worse.
Sophie called me ten minutes later.
She was staying with Megan and Noah under police protection.
“Hannah?”
I forced my voice steady.
“Hi, sweetheart.”
“Did you find Grandpa?”
“Not yet.”
“Is Dad okay?”
I looked through the window.
David sat alone at the table.
“I don’t know.”
Sophie was quiet.
Then she said, “Mom called me.”
My blood froze.
“When?”
“Last night.”
“How?”
“She called the tablet.”
“What did she say?”
“She said not to trust Mark.”
“Anything else?”
“She said there’s a lady named Evelyn.”
I frowned.
“Evelyn?”
“She said Evelyn knows about your dad.”
“Did she say her last name?”
“No.”
“Think, Sophie.”
“She said Evelyn worked at a hospital.”
My breath caught.
The night my father died.
“What hospital?”
“She didn’t say.”
I told the detective.
Within an hour, they began searching employment records connected to the hospital that treated my father six years earlier.
There had been an emergency nurse named Evelyn Shaw.
She quit two days after his death.
No forwarding address.
No current medical license in Massachusetts.
The detective found an old phone number.
Disconnected.
A former coworker remembered Evelyn moving to New Hampshire.
We drove again.
The address led to a small house outside Concord.
A woman in her late fifties answered.
The second I said my name, she nearly shut the door.
“Please.”
Her face turned white.
“You shouldn’t be here.”
“You knew my father.”
She looked past me at police.
Then at David.
When she saw him, fear became anger.
“You.”
David stopped.
“You remember me?”
“You came to the hospital that night.”
My heart pounded.
David frowned.
“No, I didn’t.”
“Yes, you did.”
“I was at home.”
Evelyn pointed at him.
“I saw you.”
David stared.
“You’re mistaken.”
“I never forgot your face.”
I looked at him.
He looked genuinely confused.
Evelyn let us inside.
Her hands shook as she poured water nobody touched.
“Thomas Carter came in alive.”
I closed my eyes.
“He was conscious?”
“Barely.”
“Did he speak?”
“Yes.”
My voice broke.
“What did he say?”
Evelyn looked at me.
“He kept saying your name.”
I covered my mouth.
“He had internal bleeding, but doctors thought they could stabilize him.”
“What happened?”
“A man arrived.”
David stiffened.
Evelyn pointed at him again.
“Him.”
“I swear I wasn’t there.”
“He said he was family.”
“What name did he use?”
“David Miller.”
The real David took a step back.
Someone had impersonated him.
Evelyn continued.
“He asked to see Thomas alone.”
“Did you let him?”
“For two minutes.”
“And?”
“When I returned, Thomas was crashing.”
My stomach turned.
“What did the doctors say?”
“They thought it was his injuries.”
“But you didn’t.”
She shook her head.
“I saw the IV line.”
“What about it?”
“It had been touched.”
The detective leaned forward.
“Are you saying someone injected him?”
“I’m saying I suspected it.”
“Why didn’t you report it?”
“I did.”
“To who?”
“My supervisor.”
“What happened?”
“The next morning, two men came to my apartment.”
I felt cold.
“They threatened you.”
“They showed me pictures of my daughter walking to school.”
David whispered, “My God.”
Evelyn looked at me.
“I quit.”
“Did you see the man’s face clearly?”
“Yes.”
“Would you recognize him?”
“Yes.”
The detective placed several photographs on the table.
Charles Vale.
Mark Vale.
Robert Miller.
Others.
Evelyn studied them.
Then shook her head.
“None of them.”
David frowned.
“Then who?”
Evelyn looked toward me.
“There’s something else.”
She went upstairs.
When she returned, she carried an envelope.
“Your father gave this to me.”
I stared.
“When?”
“Before that man arrived.”
She handed it over.
My name was written across it.
Again.
My father had left pieces of himself everywhere.
I opened it.
Inside was one photograph.
Four men stood outside Carter & Miller Auto Repair.
My father.
David.
Robert Miller.
And a fourth man I had never seen.
On the back, my father had written:
If anything happens to me, find Daniel.
I showed Evelyn.
Her hand began shaking.
“That’s him.”
She pointed at the fourth man.
“That’s the man who came to the hospital pretending to be David.”
I turned toward David.
“Who is Daniel?”
May you like
His face had gone completely pale.
“My brother.”
