Chapter 7 - THE ATTORNEY WHO WASN'T WHO HE CLAIMED TO BEDarkness swallowed the unit.
Amy's voice echoed from somewhere behind me.
“Who's there?”
No answer.
Christopher pulled out his phone.
No signal.
The investigator tried the door.
Locked.
Then we heard footsteps.
One.
Two.
Three.
Someone stopped outside.
A man's voice came through the metal.
“You should have left the box where it was.”
My blood froze.
Christopher stepped closer to the door.
“Police are on the way.”
The man laughed.
“No, they're not.”
The investigator whispered that the camera feed had been cut.
The footsteps disappeared.
We waited.
Then suddenly the lock clicked.
The door opened.
Nobody stood outside.
Christopher looked confused.
Then he noticed the note taped to the floor.
He picked it up.
Three words.
ASK YOUR MOTHER.
I stared at it.
“My mother?”
My mother had died two years after my father.
She couldn't possibly know.
Or could she?
Back at Amy's house, I searched old family boxes.
Photographs.
Medical records.
Letters.
Receipts.
Nothing.
Then I found something strange.
A birthday card from my mother.
My fifteenth birthday.
Inside, she had written:
Sometimes the person protecting you has to become the person you hate.
I read it over and over.
Christopher took the card.
“Look at the ink.”
There was another line underneath.
Different handwriting.
Don't trust the man called Daniel.
My heart started pounding.
It was the same handwriting from the note in the storage unit.
My mother's.
But she had been dead for years.
That night, we called an old family friend who had known my parents.
He told us something shocking.
My mother had maintained a private mailbox under another name.
A mailbox that was still active.
The next morning, we opened it.
Inside were letters.
Dozens of them.
All addressed to my father.
Most were from the same person.
Daniel Cross.
Christopher stared at the envelopes.
“The attorney's name is Daniel Cross?”
I nodded.
He opened one.
The first line read:
I know what you did with the books.
My father had written back:
I did it to protect Elizabeth.
The correspondence continued for months.
Money laundering.
Shell companies.
Political donations.
False property transfers.
Then one letter mentioned Dwight.
Christopher stopped reading.
“Why?”
I took the paper.
Your son is asking questions. Keep him away from Elizabeth.
I frowned.
“Dwight?”
Another letter.
Dwight is not loyal to Jared. He's loyal to his own survival.
Then another.
He knows what happened the night Elizabeth's father died.
I could hardly breathe.
“What night?”
Christopher looked at me.
“The night of the heart attack.”
I remembered the funeral.
Dwight had been twenty-two.
I had barely known him.
He had come to the funeral with Jared.
He had shaken my hand.
He'd said:
“Your father was a good man.”
But maybe he knew more.
We found Dwight's number.
Christopher called.
He didn't answer.
Ten minutes later, I received a text.
Come alone.
Location attached.
I knew I shouldn't go.
I went anyway.
An abandoned parking garage.
Dwight stood beneath a flickering light.
He looked broken.
“You weren't supposed to find any of this.”
“I need the truth.”
He looked away.
“My father did something terrible.”
“What?”
“He didn't kill your father.”
I stared at him.
“But he knew it was going to happen.”
My stomach turned.
Dwight continued.
“Your father discovered the laundering scheme. He was going to expose everyone.”
“Who is everyone?”
He swallowed.
“Jared.”
“Daniel?”
Dwight nodded.
“Several others.”
“And you?”
“I was a coward.”
I stepped closer.
“You married me because of the trust.”
“Yes.”
“You never loved me.”
He looked at me.
“I did.”
I laughed bitterly.
“You kissed Ashley.”
“I thought I was going to lose you before I ever had a chance to choose.”
“What does that mean?”
Dwight's eyes filled with tears.
“Because I didn't marry you to destroy you.”
He reached into his coat.
Pulled out a folder.
And handed it to me.
Inside was a photograph.
My father.
Alive.
Standing beside a hospital bed.
And lying in that bed was Jared.
But Jared was not sick.
He was unconscious.
Attached to machines.
The date on the photograph was one week before my father's death.
I looked at Dwight.
“What happened here?”
He whispered:
“My father was dying before your father died.”
May you like
Then he said the words that shattered everything.
“And your father was the one who put him there.”
