Chapter 6 - A Dead Man's VoiceWe left the annex through the back entrance.
Raymond drove us away from the industrial district while Malcolm called his security director. Elena stayed beside us, holding the laptop containing the recording. She had already made three encrypted copies and sent one to an attorney she trusted.
I didn't know whether that would protect us.
I only knew that, for the first time in fourteen years, someone might finally be able to explain how Hannah and Daniel had died.
Ethan was quiet in the back seat. He had fallen asleep against my shoulder, his fingers still curled around the letter his father had written.
I looked down at him.
There was a time when I could carry him upstairs after he fell asleep on the couch. Now even walking across a room could leave him breathless.
I hated that time was becoming something I could feel slipping away.
Malcolm turned in the front passenger seat.
"Thomas, we need to talk about Arthur Pike."
"Start with why a supposedly dead man was threatening your son."
Malcolm looked out at the wet streets.
"Arthur was the Forge's medical director for nearly twenty years. He was brilliant, respected, and frighteningly good at keeping secrets. When Marcus Bell was injured, Arthur signed the report declaring him fit to continue playing."
"Even though he wasn't?"
"That's what Daniel believed. Arthur insisted the decision had been made after a complete medical examination."
"And you believed Arthur."
"I believed the report."
"That isn't what I asked."
Malcolm lowered his head.
"Yes. I believed him."
I turned toward the window. I had spent years blaming myself for not knowing enough about Daniel's family. But Malcolm had been handed opportunities to ask questions and had chosen not to. He had ignored warnings from his son, then buried himself in work when that son walked away.
Now he was trying to recover the truth after the truth had taken everything from us.
"Tell me about the accident," I said.
"Arthur's death was reported eleven months before Daniel and Hannah died. His car went off a mountain road during a storm. The vehicle burned, and the authorities identified the body through dental records."
"Did you attend the funeral?"
"No. I was overseas when it happened. The service was private. Victor handled the paperwork."
I stared at him.
"Victor handled the paperwork for a dead medical director, then became the person in charge of the organization your son believed was corrupt?"
Malcolm didn't reply.
"That sounds convenient."
"I know how it sounds."
"It sounds like you let the same man control every door through which the truth might have entered."
Malcolm closed his eyes.
"You're right."
Elena opened her briefcase.
"I've already asked an outside attorney to retrieve the original death records. We should also examine the medical examiner's report, the identification procedures, and any insurance payments connected to Arthur Pike."
"How long will that take?" I asked.
"Longer than any of us would like."
The answer sat between us like a stone.
When we reached the hotel, a plainclothes security officer was waiting at the entrance. He told Malcolm that the vehicle that had left the annex had been identified as belonging to a company registered to a former Forge contractor.
The registration led to a vacant office.
The office lease had ended six years earlier.
There was no employee directory and no forwarding address.
Whoever had entered the annex had disappeared into a corporate maze built for exactly that purpose.
Malcolm arranged for a guard to remain outside our hotel room. I thanked him, then made it clear that no stranger was to enter without my permission.
He agreed.
After lunch, Ethan woke from a long sleep.
"Did we find out what happened to Dad?"
"Some of it," I said.
"Was he in danger?"
I hesitated.
Ethan noticed.
"Grandpa, please don't tell me things are fine just because you don't want me to worry."
I took his hand.
"Your father believed someone wanted to stop him from exposing something terrible. We're trying to find out who."
Ethan looked toward the window.
"Did he know he might die?"
"I don't know."
"If he did, why didn't he just leave?"
"Maybe he thought he could fix the problem. Maybe he thought the truth would protect your mother and you. Sometimes good people believe they can reason with someone who has already decided to do something wrong."
Ethan swallowed.
"Then I hope Dad didn't die thinking it was his fault."
I moved closer and kissed the top of his head.
"I hope so too, sweetheart."
A little after four, Malcolm called.
His voice sounded different.
"I have the records."
"What records?"
"Arthur Pike's death certificate and the medical examiner's report. There's a discrepancy."
I stood.
"What kind?"
"The death certificate lists the date as March 11. The report lists March 12. That's not unusual by itself, but the identification records refer to a dental chart that belonged to a different patient."
My skin prickled.
"Whose chart?"
"An unidentified male who died in a hospital fire several years earlier."
I sat down slowly.
"So Arthur Pike's body may not have been identified at all."
"Correct."
"Was there a funeral?"
"Yes."
"Then who was buried?"
"I don't know."
I looked toward Ethan, who was watching a replay of the Forge game on television.
"Can you find out?"
"I'm trying."
"Try harder. My daughter deserves better than a mystery attached to her grave."
There was a long pause.
Then Malcolm said, "Thomas, there's something else. The original records were amended six days after Arthur's reported death. The person who approved the amendment was Victor Sloane."
I felt my hand tighten around the phone.
"Does that prove Victor faked the death?"
"No. But it means he had control over records that should have been handled independently."
"Where is Victor now?"
"At the stadium."
"Then keep him there."
Malcolm was quiet.
"Thomas, I think there's a reason he hasn't left."
"What reason?"
"Because he knows we found the recording."
The phone buzzed in my hand.
A message had arrived from an unknown number.
There was no greeting, no name, and no explanation.
Just one sentence.
You have already been warned. Give back what you took, or Ethan will be the next tragedy blamed on bad luck.
I read it twice.
Then I looked at my grandson.
He was laughing at something the television commentator had said. For a few seconds, he seemed like the boy he had been before cancer took over his life.
I could not let someone take that from him.
I showed Malcolm the message.
He went completely still.
"Don't reply," he said.
"I wasn't planning to."
"Send it to Elena. We'll preserve it for the authorities."
I handed him the phone.
"One condition."
"Anything."
"No more secrets. Not from me, not from Ethan. If you know something that affects our safety, you tell us immediately."
Malcolm looked at my grandson through the open doorway.
"I promise."
For his sake, I hoped he meant it.
That evening, Elena returned with a copy of the amended death file. One page included a handwritten note from the investigating officer.
The officer had questioned why the vehicle was found on the far side of the guardrail, even though skid marks suggested it had been traveling in the opposite direction.
The note was short.
Scene inconsistent with driver behavior. Further examination requested.
Beneath it was a second note, written in a different hand.
Investigation closed by order of the district office.
No explanation.
No signature.
Only a reference number.
Elena traced the number through an old legal archive and found the name of the district official who had ordered the closure.
He was dead.
His successor had no records of the case.
And the official who had supplied the dental chart?
Victor Sloane.
I stared at the papers spread across the hotel table.
A dead man who might not have been dead.
An accident investigation that had been shut down.
A corporate executive who had controlled both.
And a threat against a fifteen-year-old boy who had never asked to inherit any of it.
I gathered the documents into a folder.
May you like
For fourteen years, I had believed that tragedy had taken Hannah and Daniel from us.
Now I was beginning to suspect that tragedy had merely been the name someone had given a crime.
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