Chapter 3 - The Message on My Daughter's PhoneI asked Nina to show me the message.
She refused.
I asked her to tell me who had sent it.
She said she didn't know.
Then I asked her why someone would photograph Greg's wrecked car and threaten him with something called the red file.
She stared at me for several seconds before whispering, “Because Greg wouldn't leave things alone.”
“What things?”
“Things that weren't his business.”
I had spent seventy-three years learning that people rarely become defensive about something they know nothing about.
“Did this person cause the crash?”
“I don't know.”
“Then why are you protecting them?”
“I'm not protecting anyone!”
Her voice rose, attracting a nurse from the nearby desk.
Nina lowered it immediately.
“I haven't slept. My husband is in intensive care. I can't do this with you right now.”
I wanted to tell her that I had driven forty-three miles through a storm before dawn because someone had called me at 2:47 in the morning and told me her husband might die.
I wanted to tell her that I had held her while she cried, that I'd watched her tremble in a hospital chair, and that I'd spent the last several hours trying to convince myself she was simply frightened.
Instead, I took a breath.
“All right,” I said. “But I'm not going home until I know you're safe.”
She looked at me with something close to resentment.
“You don't understand what you're getting involved in.”
“No,” I said. “I don't. That's the problem.”
Her phone vibrated again.
This time, she didn't look at it.
She switched it off.
A nurse approached and told us that Greg had been transferred to intensive care. Nina could visit him briefly, provided she wore protective clothing and followed the staff's instructions.
She disappeared through the doors.
I remained in the corridor, staring at the rain.
Ten minutes later, Detective Alvarez returned.
“Mr. Ashby, I need you to come with me.”
“Where?”
“To the police station. There's something you should see.”
I glanced toward intensive care.
“I can't leave my daughter.”
“You won't have to leave the hospital grounds. We have a room here where we can review the evidence.”
She led me downstairs to a small office near the emergency department.
On the table lay three photographs, a printed map, and a plastic evidence bag containing a broken watch.
The watch looked expensive. A silver face, black leather strap, a tiny scratch across the glass.
I recognized it immediately.
Greg had worn it to my house on Thanksgiving two years earlier. I'd complimented it, and he'd told me it was a gift from an important client.
“That's his,” I said.
“Yes. It was recovered beneath the driver's seat.”
“Why is it broken?”
“Impact damage.”
She pointed to the map.
“This is Route 6. The accident occurred here, just east of the Brookhaven exit. The nearest service station with usable surveillance footage is approximately twelve miles away.”
She placed the first photograph in front of me.
It showed Greg standing beside a black sedan.
A woman stood close to him, her face turned away from the camera. He was holding a flat rectangular object, perhaps a document envelope.
The second photograph showed the same car leaving the station.
The third had been taken at 12:31 a.m.
Greg's car was traveling east.
The black sedan was following it.
“That's the last confirmed sighting of the second vehicle,” Alvarez said.
“What happened after that?”
“The driver of the black sedan hasn't come forward.”
“Could the driver have forced Greg off the road?”
“It's possible. We found tire marks inconsistent with the vehicle's final path.”
“Then this wasn't an ordinary accident.”
“We haven't ruled out that possibility.”
I looked again at the photographs.
“What's the red file?”
“That is what we're trying to determine.”
“Could it be documents from Halcyon Mutual?”
“We believe so.”
“Then why would anyone threaten my daughter?”
“That's another question we're trying to answer.”
I stood.
“Detective, I think you're making a mistake.”
“Which is?”
“You keep asking what Greg was investigating. You should ask what he discovered.”
For the first time, she smiled faintly.
“That's exactly what I'm trying to find out.”
She slid a fourth photograph across the table.
This one showed a roadside ditch beside Greg's wrecked car. In the wet grass, a line of muddy footprints led away from the passenger side and toward a stand of trees.
One set of prints.
Not two.
“What does that mean?” I asked.
“It means someone may have left the scene on foot.”
“The woman?”
“Possibly.”
“Was she injured?”
There was a pause.
“We found blood on the passenger-side door. The sample doesn't match Greg's.”
My throat tightened.
“Then she was in the car.”
“That's the most likely explanation.”
“And she's missing.”
“Yes.”
I looked at the map again.
The hospital was nearly forty-three miles from my home, and Brookhaven lay far from Greg's usual route. He hadn't been taking a wrong turn on his way to the gym.
He had been going somewhere deliberately.
I returned to the waiting room just after seven.
Nina stood by the intensive care doors, her face pale and her hands clasped so tightly that her knuckles had gone white.
“Daddy, we need to go home.”
I stared at her.
“Why?”
“Because I can't stay here all day.”
“Greg is in intensive care.”
“The nurses will call us if anything changes.”
I couldn't believe what I was hearing.
“Your husband might be fighting for his life.”
She flinched.
Then she looked past me and whispered, “There's someone at the house.”
“Who?”
“I don't know.”
“Then we should call the police.”
“No!”
The word came out so sharply that a passing orderly stopped.
Nina closed her eyes.
When she spoke again, her voice was barely audible.
“Please. Just come with me. I promise I'll explain everything.”
I studied her face.
There it was again: the expression I'd seen when the detective showed her Rebecca Vale's photograph.
The look of someone who knew that a secret was about to become a disaster.
I agreed to take her home.
But as we walked toward the parking lot, Detective Alvarez appeared behind us.
“Nina.”
My daughter stopped.
The detective held up a clear plastic evidence sleeve.
Inside was a small brass key attached to a white tag.
On the tag, printed in faded black letters, were two words:
BLUE DOOR.
“Your husband had this in his jacket pocket,” Alvarez said. “Do you know what it opens?”
Nina stared at it.
Then she whispered something so quietly I almost missed it.
“No. He wasn't supposed to have that.”
The detective's expression hardened.
“What do you mean, Mrs. Ashby?”
May you like
Nina backed away.
And for the first time in my life, I watched my daughter look at the police as if they were more dangerous than the criminals they were hunting.
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