Chapter 5 - The Night Lily DiedThe drive home was silent.
Noah sat in the back seat wrapped in a blanket.
Daniel followed behind us.
Vanessa was gone.
Her phone was still in the house.
Her car was still in the garage.
But she wasn't there.
I didn't call the police.
Not yet.
I needed answers.
Noah remembered details in fragments.
That was understandable.
He had been three.
Still, one memory kept returning.
The window.
The night his mother died.
I sat beside him in the living room.
“Tell Daddy exactly what you remember.”
He hugged his teddy bear.
“Mommy was mad.”
“Why?”
“She said someone took Daddy's papers.”
“What papers?”
He shrugged.
“Big papers.”
“Was Vanessa there?”
Noah looked toward the staircase.
“She was whispering.”
“With Mommy?”
“Yes.”
“What did she say?”
He lowered his voice.
“She said, ‘He can't know.’”
My chest tightened.
“Who was she talking about?”
“You.”
I leaned back.
“What happened after that?”
“Mommy kissed me.”
“Then?”
“She said she'd come back.”
I closed my eyes.
“What happened next?”
Noah began crying.
“A loud sound.”
“Like what?”
“Bang.”
I froze.
“Where?”
“Outside.”
“What did Mommy do?”
“She ran.”
“To the window?”
He nodded.
“Then the lights went off.”
My mind raced.
The accident report said Lily left the house at 10:14 p.m.
She had driven eleven miles before crashing.
But Noah remembered a bang before she left.
Then the lights going out.
I called the police department handling the accident.
I knew the detective.
Detective Harper.
He agreed to meet me the next morning.
When I arrived, he looked uncomfortable.
“You came because of Lily.”
“Yes.”
He sighed.
“I wondered when you'd come back.”
“What does that mean?”
He pushed a file toward me.
“The original accident report.”
I opened it.
There were pages I had never seen.
A mechanical inspection.
The brake lines.
I read the paragraph twice.
No mechanical failure detected.
“So the tire didn't blow?”
“No.”
“Then why did the car crash?”
“Driver lost control.”
“She didn't.”
Harper leaned closer.
“Your wife's steering wheel had a partial fingerprint that wasn't hers.”
I stared at him.
“What?”
“It was smudged.”
“Why wasn't I told?”
“Because the print couldn't be identified.”
“Who touched the car?”
“We don't know.”
I felt my hands go cold.
Harper looked at me.
“There was something else.”
He pulled out another photograph.
A traffic camera image.
A black SUV was following Lily's car.
Three minutes before the crash.
The license plate was blurred.
But the vehicle model was clear.
I recognized it.
It belonged to Marcus Vale.
My father's former adviser.
The same man in the photograph with Vanessa.
I stood.
“Where is he now?”
“We don't know.”
“Find him.”
Harper shook his head.
“Ethan, listen to me.”
“What?”
“Two months after your wife's death, I reopened part of the file.”
“Why?”
“Because someone anonymously mailed me a photograph.”
He slid it across the desk.
It showed Marcus.
Standing outside my house.
Two weeks before Lily died.
Someone had circled the upstairs nursery in red.
On the back were five words.
THE BOY SAW EVERYTHING.
I looked toward Harper.
“You knew Noah was a witness.”
“We suspected.”
“Why didn't you interview him?”
“He was three.”
“You could have asked.”
Harper looked away.
“There was pressure to close the case.”
“From whom?”
He didn't answer.
“Detective.”
He finally looked at me.
“From someone in your father's company.”
I left the station with one thought burning through my mind.
Someone had been protecting the people responsible.
When I returned home, Daniel was waiting.
He handed me an envelope.
“This was under your study door.”
I opened it.
Inside was an old photograph of Lily.
Taken the day before she died.
She was standing beside the kitchen window.
And behind her, reflected in the glass, was someone else.
A woman.
Vanessa.
But the photograph had been taken hours before Vanessa claimed she arrived at the house.
I stared at the reflection.
Then I noticed Lily's hand.
She was holding a sheet of paper.
May you like
On it were four words.
HE KNOWS ABOUT THE TUNNEL.
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