Chapter 3 - The Man Cameron Trusted
Cameron rejected Victor’s call.
Almost immediately, a message appeared.
DINNER TONIGHT? NEED TO DISCUSS THE FOUNDATION.
Cameron showed Daniel.
Daniel frowned.
“That’s not normal?”
“He hasn’t asked me about the foundation in months.”
My stomach tightened.
“How could he know?”
Daniel immediately began checking the penthouse network.
Cameron turned toward me.
“Take Sadie home.”
I should have agreed.
Instead, I asked, “Are we in danger?”
“I don’t know.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
“It’s the only honest one I have.”
I looked at my daughter.
Sadie was sitting beneath the piano again, calmly putting crayons back into her little bag.
Three hours earlier, my biggest fear had been unemployment.
Now I was standing inside a decade-old mystery involving the deaths of Cameron’s wife and daughter.
“I’ll take her home.”
Cameron nodded.
Then Sadie spoke.
“Mommy, we can’t.”
“Why?”
“The little girl says the bad man is downstairs.”
Cameron and Daniel exchanged a look.
Daniel opened the building security feed.
A red Ferrari had just entered the private garage.
Victor.
“Lock the elevator,” Cameron ordered.
Daniel typed rapidly.
Too late.
The elevator was already ascending.
Cameron turned to me.
“Emma’s room. Now.”
I grabbed Sadie.
We hurried down the hall.
Before Cameron closed the bedroom door, he crouched in front of her.
“Sadie.”
She looked at him.
“If Emma says anything else, tell your mommy.”
Sadie nodded.
Then she touched his cheek.
“Don’t be scared.”
His eyes softened.
“I’m trying.”
The door closed.
From inside Emma’s bedroom, I heard the elevator open.
Victor’s voice carried down the hallway.
“Cam?”
Friendly.
Relaxed.
Normal.
That somehow frightened me more.
I held Sadie close.
She whispered, “Mommy?”
“Yes?”
“Why is Cameron sad all the time?”
“Because he lost people he loved.”
She thought about that.
“Did he lose them, or did somebody take them?”
I stared at her.
“Where did you hear that?”
Sadie pointed toward the corner.
Nobody was there.
My blood ran cold.
Outside, Victor laughed.
I moved toward the door and listened.
“I was nearby,” Victor was saying. “Thought I’d stop in.”
“You were nearby?”
“Is that illegal now?”
“What do you want?”
“Nothing.”
Silence.
Then Victor asked, “Why is Daniel here?”
My heart pounded.
Cameron answered calmly.
“Server issue.”
Victor paused.
“What kind?”
“Why do you care?”
Another pause.
Then Victor laughed again.
“Because I run half your company.”
Their conversation moved farther away.
Sadie wriggled from my arms.
She walked toward Emma’s little desk.
“Sadie.”
She opened a drawer.
Inside were crayons.
She removed them.
Then she reached underneath the drawer.
A folded photograph was taped there.
My breath caught.
“How did you know?”
“The girl said her mommy hid pictures everywhere.”
I removed the photograph.
It showed Rebecca standing beside her car.
Behind her, partially visible, was Victor.
He was talking to another man.
The photograph had a date printed at the bottom.
One day before the accident.
On the back, Rebecca had written:
V + M. GARAGE. 4:17 P.M.
I photographed it with my phone.
Then I heard footsteps.
Coming toward the room.
I grabbed Sadie.
The handle moved.
Locked.
“Who’s in there?” Victor called.
My lungs stopped working.
“Cam?”
Cameron answered from somewhere behind him.
“Leave that room alone.”
Victor went silent.
“What’s in there?”
“Emma’s things.”
“Oh.”
His voice changed.
“I didn’t realize you still kept it locked.”
“Now you know.”
Another long silence.
Then Victor said, “You’ve been acting strange.”
“So have you.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning you arrived without being invited.”
Victor laughed.
“Since when do I need an invitation?”
“Since today.”
The footsteps moved away.
Twenty minutes later, the elevator closed.
Cameron opened the bedroom door.
I handed him the photograph.
He stared at it.
“Who’s M?” I asked.
“I don’t know.”
Daniel enlarged the image.
The second man’s face was partially visible.
Cameron recognized him.
“Marcus Vane.”
“Who is he?”
“He was the mechanic who serviced Rebecca’s car.”
Daniel looked sharply at him.
“Before the accident?”
“Two days before.”
We all understood what that meant.
Cameron called his attorney, Rachel Cole, and instructed her to contact a private investigator without revealing why.
Then he did something I didn’t expect.
He apologized to me.
“For what?”
“For putting you in this.”
“You didn’t.”
“My family did.”
“We don’t know that yet.”
He looked toward Emma’s photograph.
“I think I’ve known something was wrong for ten years.”
“What do you mean?”
“The morning Rebecca left, she was nervous.”
He sat down.
“She asked whether I trusted Victor.”
“What did you say?”
“That he was family.”
His voice became bitter.
“She asked whether family could betray you.”
I sat beside him.
“What happened next?”
“I got annoyed.”
He looked ashamed.
“I had a meeting. Emma was trying to climb onto me. Rebecca kept asking questions. I told her we’d talk when she got home.”
His eyes filled.
“Emma asked, ‘Daddy, can I kiss you?’”
My chest tightened.
“I said yes.”
He stared at his hands.
“That was the last thing she ever said to me.”
Now I understood why Sadie’s question had shattered him.
I wanted to say something comforting.
Nothing felt sufficient.
So I simply sat beside him.
After a while, Sadie wandered over.
She climbed between us.
Cameron smiled faintly.
Then Daniel’s phone rang.
It was the investigator.
Marcus Vane had disappeared nine years earlier.
No bank activity.
No driver’s license renewal.
Nothing.
But there was more.
Before disappearing, Marcus had rented a storage unit under a false name.
The unit had been abandoned.
Its contents were auctioned.
Most were gone.
One box remained unclaimed in the facility office because it contained personal records.
The investigator could obtain it legally through the appropriate process.
Cameron stood.
“How long?”
“Tomorrow.”
That night, Cameron insisted Sadie and I stay in a secure guest suite.
I barely slept.
At 2:13 a.m., Sadie sat upright beside me.
“Mommy.”
I turned on the lamp.
“What’s wrong?”
“She’s crying.”
“Who?”
“Emma.”
Every hair on my arms rose.
Sadie pointed toward the hallway.
“She says Cameron has to remember the rain.”
“What rain?”
“The rain before the crash.”
I grabbed my robe.
We found Cameron awake in his office.
When Sadie repeated the message, his face changed.
“It wasn’t raining the day of the accident.”
Sadie frowned.
“She says before.”
Cameron slowly stood.
“The night before.”
“What happened?”
He looked toward the windows.
“Rebecca came home soaked.”
“From where?”
“I never asked.”
He suddenly crossed to a cabinet and removed an old phone.
“I kept everything.”
He powered it on.
After several minutes, he found archived messages from Rebecca.
One had been sent at 11:48 p.m. the night before she died.
Cam, if I don’t come home soon, call me.
Another followed.
I’m at the garage.
Then a third.
Victor is here.
Cameron stared at the screen.
“I never saw these.”
“How?”
“My phone was replaced that week. The backup restored later.”
Then we noticed something else.
Rebecca had sent a photograph.
Cameron opened it.
Rain streaked across the image.
Victor stood beside Rebecca’s car.
Marcus Vane was beside him.
And between them was a third person.
A woman.
Cameron enlarged the photograph.
His face went white.
“No.”
I looked at him.
“You know her?”
May you like
He nodded slowly.
“My mother.”
