Chapter 12 - THE GRAVEEdward was gone.
His house had been emptied.
His office burned.
His accounts frozen.
Everything connecting him to my father had disappeared.
Everything except one thing.
The grave.
At midnight, I stood beside my father's cemetery marker.
Detective Alvarez stayed nearby.
The ground had been disturbed recently.
Someone had already been here.
We dug carefully.
At the bottom of the grave was a steel box.
Inside was the missing half of the ledger.
But there was something else.
A photograph.
My mother.
Pregnant with me.
Standing beside my father.
And behind them was Edward.
Then another person.
Richard Voss.
The date on the photograph was thirty years old.
I stared.
Voss hadn't become powerful later in life.
He had been powerful for decades.
My father had known him.
My mother had known him.
And Edward had known both.
I turned the photograph over.
On the back, my father's handwriting said:
One of them will betray us.
I looked at Detective Alvarez.
“Which one?”
She shook her head.
“We don't know.”
Then the box contained a final cassette.
I played it.
My father's voice filled the cemetery.
If you have found this, then everyone I feared is still alive.
Marian, listen carefully.
Edward didn't betray me.
Voss did.
But there is another person you must fear.
I leaned closer.
The recording continued.
Someone inside your marriage.
I felt my blood run cold.
Daniel.
But Daniel had been shot.
Was he still working for Voss?
The recording continued.
Your husband was not my enemy.
He was trying to stop them.
I froze.
“No.”
Detective Alvarez looked at me.
The tape crackled.
I forced Daniel to marry you.
I stopped breathing.
“What?”
My father's voice continued.
He was supposed to protect you from the inside.
I stared at the recorder.
Every memory collapsed.
The affair.
The lies.
The stolen car.
The ambulance.
My father's warning.
None of it made sense.
Then his voice became weaker.
But somewhere along the way, Daniel changed.
I don't know whether he betrayed you…
or whether he was trying to save you in the only way he knew how.
The tape ended.
I couldn't speak.
Detective Alvarez broke the silence.
“Daniel may have lied about why he left.”
“But he abandoned me.”
“Yes.”
“He stole my car.”
“Yes.”
“He took my phone.”
“Yes.”
“He left me on the pavement while I was in labor.”
“Yes.”
She looked at me.
“Whatever his motive was, he still chose to hurt you.”
I nodded.
That was the only thing I knew.
Then another sound came from behind the gravestones.
A branch breaking.
We turned.
A figure ran.
Detective Alvarez chased him.
I followed.
The figure reached a black sedan.
He turned.
Edward.
He looked at me.
May you like
Then he said something that changed everything.
“Marian, Daniel was never supposed to survive tonight.”
