Chapter 8 - The Confession Nina Couldn't MakeI left Greg's room without saying goodbye.
I found Nina in the corridor, standing beside a window overlooking the hospital parking lot. She turned when she heard my footsteps.
“Is he awake?”
“Yes.”
“Can I see him?”
“Not yet.”
She studied my face.
“What happened?”
I took her by the elbow and guided her toward an empty consultation room. Detective Alvarez followed us but remained near the door.
I shut it.
“Greg says you gave Daniel Pike the key.”
Nina's expression changed.
She didn't deny it.
That frightened me more than anything she'd said that morning.
“How long have you known him?”
“Daddy...”
“How long?”
“Three weeks.”
“Why?”
She pressed her fingers against her forehead.
“Because he said Greg was going to be killed.”
“And you believed him?”
“He showed me photographs. He showed me pages from the old claims. He said Greg had taken something that belonged to people who wouldn't hesitate to hurt our family.”
“So you helped him?”
“I thought I was preventing something worse.”
“By giving a man you barely knew a key to a building connected to your mother's secret investigation?”
Her eyes filled.
“I didn't know what the key opened.”
“You must have known it mattered.”
“Yes.”
“Then tell me why.”
She sank into a chair.
For a long moment, she said nothing.
Then she began.
Three weeks earlier, she'd received a phone call from an unfamiliar number. A man had introduced himself as Daniel Pike, telling her that Greg's private investigation had uncovered dangerous information.
He said Greg was obsessed with the past. He said my wife had collected documents that could destroy innocent people. He warned that Greg was preparing to publish accusations that might lead to prison sentences, lawsuits, and retaliation against anyone connected to him.
Nina had refused to help.
Then Daniel sent her a photograph.
It showed our house.
More specifically, it showed my bedroom window, taken from the road outside my property.
Underneath it was a message.
YOUR FATHER IS ALREADY PART OF THIS. HE JUST DOESN'T KNOW IT.
That was when she'd panicked.
“He told me he could make the investigation disappear,” Nina said. “He said all he needed was the key Greg had found. He promised that if I gave it to him, nobody would get hurt.”
I looked at her.
“And you believed a man who was photographing my house?”
“I was scared.”
“So you put your trust in him instead of your husband?”
Her face crumpled.
“I thought Greg was doing something reckless. I thought Daniel was trying to stop it before someone died.”
“Someone nearly did die.”
“I know!”
The words burst from her.
She covered her mouth and began crying.
For several minutes, I sat silently across from her.
I wanted to tell her that she should have trusted me. That she should have called the police. That there were a hundred different choices she could have made before handing a dangerous man the key to a secret her mother had died keeping.
But I saw how terrified she was.
I remembered her as a little girl standing in the doorway of my workshop, holding a broken toy and begging me to fix it. Whenever she was frightened, she had always believed that bringing me the problem would make it smaller.
Somewhere along the way, she'd learned to carry her fear alone.
“What exactly did you give him?” I asked.
“The brass key. It was hidden in a box of Greg's old belongings. I thought it was for the warehouse.”
“Did you tell Greg?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because Daniel said if Greg found out, he'd go straight to the police. Then everyone would know about the file, and Daniel would have no reason to protect us.”
“Protect us from whom?”
“I never found out.”
She wiped her face.
“Daddy, I swear I didn't know he was going to hurt Greg.”
I believed that she was frightened.
I believed that she regretted what she'd done.
But I wasn't yet certain I understood the truth.
Detective Alvarez entered the room.
“Nina, I need you to answer something for me.”
Nina nodded weakly.
“When you gave Daniel Pike the key, did he tell you where he intended to go?”
“He said he was going to retrieve the documents before Greg could use them.”
“Did he mention Rebecca Vale?”
Nina hesitated.
“Yes.”
“What did he say?”
“That she'd stolen company property and was trying to blackmail him.”
Alvarez glanced at me.
“Did he say anything else?”
Nina stared down at her hands.
“He told me Rebecca had been dead for years.”
The detective's face hardened.
“Did you believe him?”
“I wanted to.”
“That's not the same thing.”
“No.”
Nina looked up.
“Detective, there's something else. The night Greg left for the gym, he got a call at around ten thirty. I heard him arguing with someone in his office. He said, 'You had your chance. It's over.' Then he hung up.”
“Did you hear the other person's voice?”
“No.”
“Did Greg say anything to you afterward?”
“He told me he had to go somewhere. He said he would be home before midnight.”
“Did you ask where?”
“Yes.”
“What did he say?”
Nina looked at me.
“He said he was going to fix something your wife started.”
The words settled heavily between us.
Before I could ask her to explain, Detective Alvarez's phone rang.
She answered, listened for several seconds, then looked toward the consultation room door.
“Mr. Ashby,” she said, “we have a problem.”
“What now?”
“Someone has accessed the evidence locker at the county station.”
“What was taken?”
She swallowed.
“Your wife's original red file.”
I felt the blood drain from my face.
“But I have the file.”
“You have copies. The originals were apparently stored in the evidence locker by an officer who died in 1999.”
She lowered her voice.
“And the security footage shows the person who took them.”
“Who?”
Detective Alvarez turned her phone toward us.
The image was grainy, recorded by a camera in the station corridor at 3:12 that morning.
A man in a dark jacket stood beside the open evidence locker.
He was holding a red folder.
He turned toward the camera.
May you like
I recognized him immediately.
It was Greg.
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