Now I documented everything. 11:42 p.m. Vehicle arrived. 11:47 p.m. First photograph taken. 11:51 p.m. First message received. SELL THE LAND. 11:53 p.m. Second message. YOUR FATHER SHOULD HAVE. 11:55 p.m. Third message. CORWIN TRIED TO MAKE THIS EASY. 12:05 a.m. Vehicle departed eastbound. I wrote down every detail before fear could distort my memory. Black SUV. Dark rear windows. Damage near the right taillight. Temporary-looking plate frame. Driver never exited. Passenger unknown. Then I sent the photographs to Detective Mara Vance. She was the detective assigned after I reported the threatening call. Her reply came three minutes later. Do not leave the house. Officers are coming. I stared at those words. A year earlier, I would have worried about what the neighbors thought. I would have worried about whether police cars outside made me look dramatic. I would have wondered if I was overreacting. That was another thing Corwin had trained into me. He never had to say, “Don’t trust yourself.” He simply questioned me until I did it for him. Are you sure? Did you calculate that correctly? Are you remembering what actually happened? Why are you making this emotional? Do you understand how money works? Eventually, I began interrogating myself before he had the chance. Not anymore.
At 12:18, two patrol cars arrived. Detective Vance arrived fifteen minutes later. She was younger than I expected, maybe thirty-eight, with dark hair pulled tightly behind her head and the tired eyes of someone who had spent too many nights interviewing people who lied. She stood inside my kitchen and read the messages twice. “Any reason someone would connect your father to this?” “Yes.” I placed the survey on the table. Then the photographs. Then Dad’s letter. Then the cassette player. She looked at the pile. “This all came from the safe-deposit box?” “Except the survey.” “Where was that?” “Hidden in my father’s workshop.” She sat down. “Start at the beginning.” “I’m not sure where the beginning is anymore.” “Pick the earliest thing you know.” So I did. I told her about Dad. The house. The maintenance trust. Corwin. The fake rent. The forged power of attorney. The attempted sale. Garret Pike. The safe-deposit box. And finally the photograph showing Corwin outside my house seven years before he supposedly met me. Detective Vance studied that photograph for a long time. “You’re certain this is your former husband?” “Yes.” “How certain?” “I slept beside him for five years.” She nodded. “Fair enough.” Then she pointed at Garret’s photograph.
“And this is the buyer from the attempted sale?” “Yes.” “Did he ever acknowledge knowing your father?” “No.” “Did Corwin?” “No.” “Did either man ever mention the corridor?” “Never.” Detective Vance leaned back. “That bothers me.” “What part?” “All of it.” She asked to hear Dad’s recording. I pressed Play. His voice filled the kitchen. I watched Vance instead of the cassette player. Her expression barely changed until Dad said: “He asks too many questions about you.” Then she looked at me. When the tape finished, she remained silent. “What?” I asked. “Your father was afraid of Corwin before Corwin entered your life.” “Yes.” “And then Corwin entered your life.” “Yes.” “Do you know exactly how?” “At a coffee shop.” “When?” I told her. “Was it near your home?” “No.” “Your work?” “No.” “Somewhere you regularly went?” I thought about it. “No.” That realization made my stomach tighten. The coffee shop had been almost twenty minutes from my apartment. I had gone because my usual café was closed for renovations. “How did Corwin explain being there?” “He said he had a meeting nearby.” “With whom?” “I don’t know.” “Did you ever ask?” “No.” Vance tapped her pen against the photograph.
What happened after you met?” “He asked for my number.” “How quickly?” “That day.” “And when did you tell him about the house?” I opened my mouth. Then stopped. “I don’t remember.” “Think.” I tried. Our first dinner. Our second date. Walking beside Lady Bird Lake. Corwin asking about my childhood. My parents. Dad. The house. The workshop. The memories came back differently now. Questions I once interpreted as interest suddenly sounded like an interview. Did your dad own the place outright? Was it always just the two of you? Any siblings? Did your mother leave property too? Did your dad ever talk about selling? At the time, I had thought: He really wants to know me. Now I wondered whether he had already known the answers. “Oh God.” Vance leaned forward. “What?” “He asked about the house on our second date.” “Specifically?” “He asked whether Dad planned to leave it to me.” Vance stopped tapping her pen.
“Second date?” “Yes.” “And that didn’t seem unusual?” “My father had just died.” “How recently?” “About two months.” Her expression changed. “You met Corwin two months after your father died?” “Yes.” “And you were married approximately seven months later?” I nodded. Saying the timeline aloud made me feel foolish. Vance must have seen it on my face. “Don’t do that.” “Do what?” “Rewrite yourself as stupid because you have information today that you didn’t have then.” I looked away. She continued. “People running schemes depend on hindsight humiliating the victim.” That sentence stayed with me. At 1:40 in the morning, Detective Vance left with copies of everything. A patrol car remained outside until sunrise. I didn’t sleep. Instead, I opened an old storage box containing photographs from the year I met Corwin. If he had planned our meeting, there might be something I had missed. I found movie tickets. Restaurant receipts. A dried flower. Birthday cards. The first anniversary note Corwin had written me. Five years of my life reduced to objects I no longer knew how to interpret.
Then I found a photograph from our third date.
Corwin and I were standing outside a restaurant.
His arm was around my waist.
I looked happy.
Painfully happy.
But it wasn’t our faces that caught my attention.
It was the truck behind us.
A gray pickup.
I had seen it somewhere.
I pulled out Dad’s photograph of Garret Pike.
Behind Garret and Dad was the same truck.
Or one extremely similar to it.
I enlarged my old photograph on my phone.
The license plate was blurry.
But the sticker on the rear window wasn’t.
PIKE DEVELOPMENT GROUP.
My stomach turned.
Garret had been near us on our third date.
Coincidence?
Maybe.
But coincidence was becoming expensive.
At 7:03 a.m., I texted the photograph to Detective Vance.
She called almost immediately.
“Where did you get this?”
“Old photo album.”
“When was it taken?”
“Third date with Corwin.”
“Send me the original file if you have it.”
“I’ll look.”
“Tavia?”
“Yes?”
“Do not contact Pike.”
“I won’t.”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I.”
By nine o’clock, Mr. Dacre was sitting at my kitchen table.
He had brought coffee.
I had brought paranoia.
I placed the photograph in front of him.
He stared at the truck.
“Could be coincidence.”
“That’s what I keep telling myself.”
“And?”
“I’m running out of coincidences.”
He couldn’t argue with that.
Then I asked him the question that had kept me awake.
“What was Dad’s land worth when he died?”
“The house?”
“No.”
“The corridor.”
“We don’t know.”
“Find out.”
“Tavia—”
“I want to know what Corwin thought he was marrying.”
Mr. Dacre flinched slightly.
“Don’t phrase it that way.”
“Why?”
“Because whatever his motive was, you were not an asset.”
“To him I might have been.”
Mr. Dacre took off his glasses.
“If this began before you met him, there may be a much larger civil case.”
“I don’t care about another lawsuit.”
“You should.”
“I care about why.”
“I understand.”
“No.”
My voice cracked.
“You understand fraud.”
“You understand trusts.”
“You understand deeds.”
“You understand signatures.”
“But I married him.”
Mr. Dacre said nothing.
“I remember him proposing.”
My throat tightened.
“He took me to the hill where Dad used to take me when I was little.”
“How did Corwin know about the hill?”
“I told him.”
“When?”
“I don’t remember.”
“That matters.”
“Everything matters now.”
I stood and walked toward the sink.
“He cried when he proposed.”
Mr. Dacre remained silent.
“He actually cried.”
I laughed once.
“I thought it meant he loved me.”
“Maybe some part of him did.”
I turned.
“Don’t.”
“Tavia—”
“Please don’t give me that because you think it makes this easier.”
He nodded.
“You’re right.”
“If he targeted me for the property, I need to know.”
“Then we’ll find out.”
That afternoon, we started with the corridor.
The county records were a mess.
Old plats.
Abandoned easements.
Utility maps dating back decades.
Several parcels had been rezoned.
Others had been consolidated.
The corridor beneath my property had once carried municipal drainage and service lines.
The city abandoned it after a new route was built.
Normally that would have made it nearly worthless.
Except twenty years later, the surrounding neighborhood exploded in value.
Developers bought parcel after parcel.
Apartment complexes went up.
Retail centers appeared.
Office buildings followed.
But there was one enormous undeveloped tract behind my neighborhood.
Forty-three acres.
Owned by Pike Development Group.
Garret’s company.
And according to a planning proposal filed six years earlier, Pike wanted to build a mixed-use development there.
Apartments.
Retail.
Office space.
A hotel.
Estimated project value:
$86 million.
I stared at the number.
Mr. Dacre stared too.
“Eighty-six million?”
“That was the old estimate.”
“What stopped it?”
He scrolled.
Then he stopped.
“Access.”
I knew before he explained.
The development needed a second emergency access route to meet city requirements.
The most practical route crossed the abandoned corridor.
And one critical section of that corridor ran directly beneath my property.
“How much would my section be worth?”
“Not eighty-six million.”
“I know.”
“But to someone trying to unlock the entire project?”
“Yes.”
He leaned back.
“A lot.”
“How much is a lot?”
“Potentially millions depending on alternatives, negotiations, zoning, and how badly they need it.”
I thought about Corwin charging me $900 a month.
I thought about him making me split groceries.
I thought about the dead refrigerator.
I thought about him buying watches from money Dad left to protect me.
He had been sitting on a possible multimillion-dollar land problem while demanding $1.94 for detergent.
Suddenly his obsession with fairness seemed almost theatrical.
If I was constantly worried about $20, I would never ask questions about $2 million.
That evening, Detective Vance called.
“We identified the SUV.”
My body stiffened.
“Who owns it?”
“A security company.”
“Which one?”
“Pike Development uses them.”
I closed my eyes.
“Garret.”
“Possibly.”
“Can you arrest him?”
“Not based on a vehicle sitting on a public street.”
“And the messages?”
“We’re working on the number.”
“Working?”
“Tavia, this isn’t television.”
I hated that answer because it was reasonable.
“There’s more.”
“What?”
“We pulled archived visitor records from the original bank branch.”
I sat down.
“Corwin?”
“Yes.”
“He accessed Dad’s box?”
“Yes.”
“Alone?”
“No.”
I stopped breathing.
“Who was with him?”
There was a pause.
“Garret Pike.”
For several seconds, the only sound in my kitchen was the refrigerator.
“They went together?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“April seventeenth.”
The exact date written on Dad’s letter.
BOX EMPTY — 04/17.
“What did they take?”
“We don’t know.”
“The bank must have cameras.”
“This was years ago.”
“Sign-in sheets?”
“Yes.”
“And they both signed?”
“Corwin signed as authorized representative.”
“Garret?”
“Listed as witness.”
I laughed bitterly.
“Witness to what?”
“That’s one of the questions we’d like answered.”
“Can you bring him in?”
“We can ask questions.”
“Ask Corwin too.”
Another pause.
“Tavia.”
Something in her voice made my stomach drop.
“What?”
“We tried.”
“Tried what?”
“To locate Corwin.”
I stood.
“What do you mean locate?”
“He isn’t at his registered residence.”
“Maybe he’s traveling.”
“His employer says he hasn’t reported for work in nine days.”
My fingers tightened around the phone.
“What about his lawyer?”
“Claims he hasn’t spoken to him.”
“His phone?”
“Off.”
“When?”
“Approximately six hours before the SUV appeared outside your house.”
I looked toward the front window.
“Do you think he was in that vehicle?”
“We don’t know.”
“Do you think he’s dangerous?”
“I think you should behave as though the person sending those messages knows where you live.”
That was not the answer I wanted.
But it was the one I needed.
For the next three days, nothing happened.
That was worse.
No messages.
No SUV.
No calls.
Silence can be its own form of pressure.
Every car slowing near the house made me look outside.
Every floorboard creak woke me.
Every unknown number tightened my stomach.
On Thursday morning, I went to the preschool anyway.
I needed something ordinary.
Finger paint.
Story time.
Shoelaces.
Children arguing about who got the purple cup.
At 10:20, one of my students handed me a drawing.
It showed a crooked yellow house beneath a giant blue sun.
“That’s you,” she said, pointing to a stick figure.
“And that’s your house.”
I smiled.
“You gave me very long arms.”
“So you can reach everything.”
I nearly cried.
At noon, the receptionist called my classroom.
“Tavia?”
“Yes?”
“There’s a man here asking for you.”
My body went cold.
“Who?”
“He says his name is Garret Pike.”
I stopped breathing.
“Don’t let him leave.”
“What?”
“Call the police.”
Then I immediately corrected myself.
“No.”
Vance had told me not to confront him.
“Keep him there if you can.”
“How?”
“Tell him I’m finishing lunch duty.”
I called Detective Vance.
She answered.
“Garret Pike is at my school.”
“What?”
“He’s downstairs.”
“Do not go near him.”
“I’m upstairs.”
“Stay there.”
“What if he leaves?”
“Let him.”
“But—”
“Tavia.”
Her voice hardened.
“Let him leave.”
Five minutes later, I watched through an upstairs window as Garret walked toward the parking lot.
He looked different without the business suit.
Jeans.
Gray shirt.
Baseball cap.
He stopped beside his truck.
Then looked directly up at my window.
I stepped backward.
My phone vibrated.
Unknown number.
I opened the message.
YOUR FATHER MADE THE SAME MISTAKE.
I showed Detective Vance when she arrived.
Garret was gone by then.
But the school cameras had recorded him.
So had the parking-lot cameras.
For the first time, there was evidence connecting his physical presence to a threatening message sent at almost the same moment.
Vance finally had leverage.
Garret was questioned that afternoon.
He denied sending anything.
Denied threatening me.
Denied following me.
Denied knowing why the security-company SUV had been outside my house.
But he made one mistake.
When Detective Vance asked about my property, Garret said:
“I haven’t cared about that corridor in years.”
Vance had never mentioned a corridor.
Only my property.
That evening she called me.
“He knows.”
“I already knew that.”
“Yes.”
“But now I can prove he knows.”
“Did he say where Corwin is?”
“No.”
“Do you think he knows?”
“Yes.”
I sat at my dining table.
The same table where Garret had eaten salmon while pretending to be an ordinary buyer.
“There’s something else,” Vance said.
“What?”
“When we confronted Pike about the safe-deposit visit, he changed his story.”
“To what?”
“He says Corwin asked him to come.”
“Why?”
“As a witness.”
“To steal from Dad’s box?”
“He claims nothing was stolen.”
“Then what were they doing?”
“Looking for a survey.”
I froze.
“He admitted that?”
“Eventually.”
“What did Corwin tell him?”
“That your father had hidden documentation affecting the development.”
“And when they didn’t find it?”
“Pike claims Corwin told him he knew another way to obtain control of the property.”
I could barely speak.
“What other way?”
Vance was quiet.
Then she said:
“You.”
The room disappeared around me.
I knew.
Of course I knew.
But hearing another person say it made the truth physical.
Corwin couldn’t buy the property from Dad.
He couldn’t find the survey.
He couldn’t legally control the land.
So he waited.
Dad died.
Then Corwin found the grieving daughter.
He learned what she liked.
He asked about her childhood.
He became helpful.
Dependable.
Protective.
He offered to handle the paperwork.
He proposed.
He married her.
And eleven days after the wedding, he opened a spreadsheet.
Two columns.
His.
Mine.
Except there had never really been two columns.
There had been one objective.
Control.
I pressed my palm against my mouth.
“Tavia?”
“I’m here.”
“There’s one more thing.”
I closed my eyes.
Of course there was.
“Pike says Corwin eventually stopped working with him.”
“What?”
“About two years into your marriage.”
“Why?”
“He doesn’t know.”
“I don’t believe him.”
“Neither do I.”
“What does he claim?”
“That Corwin decided he could make more money selling the access rights himself.”
That sounded like Corwin.
Even betrayal had to produce a return.
“So Corwin double-crossed Garret?”
“Possibly.”
“Then why were they working together on the attempted sale?”
“We’re still figuring that out.”
After the call, I sat alone for a long time.
Then I opened the FINAL AUDIT note on my phone.
I had not touched it since the divorce.
The entries were still there.
Laundry soap.
Rent.
Utilities.
Credit cards.
Trust withdrawals.
I scrolled to the bottom.
Then added a new heading.
BEFORE THE MARRIAGE.
Dad approached by Corwin.
Dad approached by Garret.
Safe-deposit box accessed.
Survey searched for.
Father dies.
Corwin contacts Tavia.
Relationship begins.
Marriage.
Financial control begins.
I stared at the sequence.
There was one gap.
Dad dies.
Corwin contacts Tavia.
For the first time, I asked the question I had been avoiding.
How had Corwin known so quickly that my father was dead?
The obituary.
Maybe.
Public records.
Maybe.
Garret.
Maybe.
But I remembered something.
Dad’s funeral.
A rainy afternoon.
Dozens of people.
Repair technicians.
Neighbors.
Former customers.
Men from his old union shop.
I remembered standing beside the grave while people approached one after another.
Most faces had disappeared from memory.
But someone had left a business card inside the guest book.
I had kept that book.
I ran upstairs.
Opened the closet.
Pulled down the funeral box.
Programs.
Condolence cards.
Flowers pressed between paper.
The guest book was at the bottom.
I turned the pages slowly.
Names.
Signatures.
Messages.
Then I found the card.
PIKE DEVELOPMENT GROUP.
My hands started shaking.
Behind the card was a signature.
Not Garret.
C. ROOKE.
Corwin had attended my father’s funeral.
Two months before the day he pretended to meet me for the first time.
I photographed the page.
Sent it to Vance.
Then I stared at Corwin’s signature.
He had watched me bury my father.
He had watched me cry.
He had watched me stand beside the grave of the only parent I had left.
Then he waited.
Two months.
And walked into a coffee shop.
“Is this seat taken?”
Those were the first words he had ever spoken to me.
At least, they were the first words I remembered.
Now I knew better.
The first thing Corwin had ever given me was not coffee.
It was a lie.
My phone rang.
Detective Vance.
I answered immediately.
“You got the picture?”
“Yes.”
“That’s his signature.”
“I know.”
“Tavia, we need to talk about your father’s death.”
My heart stopped.
“What about it?”
“Was an autopsy performed?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“He had a heart attack.”
“Was that confirmed medically?”
“The hospital said cardiac arrest.”
“That describes how the heart stopped.”
Her voice became very careful.
“It doesn’t necessarily tell us why.”
I couldn’t breathe.
“Vance.”
“I am not telling you your father was murdered.”
The word still entered the room.
Murdered.
“I am telling you we now have evidence that two men with a significant financial interest in his property were tracking that property before his death.”
I gripped the chair.
“And one of those men attended his funeral, concealed that fact from you, later married you, gained access to the estate, drained the trust, and attempted to sell the property.”
I whispered:
“No.”
“We have to examine everything.”
“No.”
“Tavia.”
“My father died from a heart attack.”
“Maybe he did.”
“He had high blood pressure.”
“I understand.”
“He worked too much.”
“I understand.”
“He was fifty-eight.”
“I know.”
“You can’t turn everything into Corwin.”
“No.”
Her voice softened.
“But we can’t ignore Corwin because the alternative is painful.”
I closed my eyes.
“When did Dad call Mr. Dacre?”
“Two weeks before his death.”
“When did Corwin last visit him?”
“We’re trying to determine that.”
I suddenly remembered the cassette.
Dad saying:
If they come back.
Not if.
When.
Someone had returned.
Maybe more than once.
“Check his workshop calendar.”
“What?”
“Dad kept a wall calendar.”
“Do you still have it?”
“I don’t know.”
I ran outside.
Across the yard.
Into the workshop.
The old calendars had been stacked above a cabinet because Dad never threw anything away.
2019.
2020.
2021.
I found the year he died.
March.
Most squares contained ordinary notes.
Service calls.
Dentist.
Oil change.
Then March 16.
Three days before Dad died.
One entry.
C.R. — 6 PM.
My knees almost gave out.
“Vance.”
“I’m here.”
“Corwin met Dad three days before he died.”
Silence.
“Photograph it.”
I did.
“Do not touch anything else.”
“What does this mean?”
“It means I’m coming over.”
She arrived forty minutes later.
This time she brought another detective.
They photographed the calendar.
The cassette.
The workshop.
The compartment where Dad had hidden the survey.
Then Vance asked:
“Did your father have security cameras?”
“No.”
“Doorbell camera?”
“No.”
“Neighbors?”
I thought.
“Mrs. Bell.”
“Who?”
“The woman who lived behind us.”
“Still there?”
“She moved to assisted living.”
“Alive?”
“I think so.”
The next morning, we found her.
Eighty-four years old.
Sharp as broken glass.
She remembered Dad immediately.
“Alton was stubborn.”
“That sounds right.”
“And he made terrible coffee.”
“That also sounds right.”
We showed her Corwin’s photograph.
She squinted.
Then her expression changed.
“I know him.”
My stomach dropped.
“How?”
“He argued with your father.”
“When?”
“Right before Alton died.”
Vance leaned forward.
“Can you remember the day?”
“No.”
“Was it close to his death?”
“Very.”
“What happened?”
“I was gardening.”
She pointed toward an imaginary fence.
“They were in the workshop.”
“Could you hear them?”
“Not everything.”
“What did you hear?”
Mrs. Bell closed her eyes.
Then she repeated the sentence that would change the investigation.
“Your father said, ‘You will never get this property through my daughter.’”
Nobody spoke.
Mrs. Bell looked at me.
“I didn’t understand it then.”
My hands were numb.
“What did the other man say?”
She thought.
“He said something about everyone having a price.”
“Anything else?”
She shook her head.
“Then your father told him to leave.”
“Did he?”
“Eventually.”
“Eventually?”
“They argued another few minutes.”
“Did you see him leave?”
“Yes.”
“Was anyone with him?”
Mrs. Bell hesitated.
Then nodded.
“Another man was waiting in a truck.”
We showed her Garret’s photograph.
She stared at it.
“That might be him.”
“Might?”
“It was years ago.”
Fair.
Then she looked at me.
“I saw your father the next morning.”
“How was he?”
“Angry.”
“Did he say anything?”
“He told me he had finally figured out what they were trying to do.”
“What?”
“He wouldn’t say.”
My throat tightened.
“Anything else?”
Mrs. Bell looked toward the window.
“He said he was going to the police.”
Dad died two days later.
That night, I did not go home.
Vance insisted.
I stayed with a coworker.
At 2:13 a.m., my phone vibrated.
One email.
No subject.
No sender name I recognized.
There was an attachment.
An audio file.
I should have waited for Vance.
I didn’t.
I pressed Play.
Static.
Breathing.
Then Corwin’s voice.
“Tavia.”
I sat upright in bed.
My entire body went cold.
“If you’re hearing this, you’ve already found more than I expected.”
I couldn’t move.
“I know what you think.”
A pause.
“You think I married you for the land.”
Another pause.
“You’re partly right.”
My stomach twisted.
“But that’s not the part you should be afraid of.”
I gripped the phone.
“Garret will tell you I planned everything.”
“He’ll tell you I followed you.”
“He’ll tell you I used you.”
“Some of that is true.”
Then Corwin laughed softly.
The same controlled little laugh he used whenever I questioned one of his spreadsheets.
“But Garret won’t tell you what happened on March nineteenth.”
The date Dad died.
My blood went cold.
“He won’t tell you because if he does, he goes to prison.”
A long stretch of static followed.
Then Corwin whispered:
“And so do I.”
The recording ended.
I immediately called Detective Vance.
She answered.
“Tavia?”
“I just received something.”
“What?”
“A recording.”
“From Corwin?”
“Yes.”
“What does it say?”
I swallowed.
“He mentioned Dad’s death.”
Silence.
“Send it to me.”
I did.
Thirty seconds later, Vance called back.
“Do not delete the email.”
“I won’t.”
“Don’t respond.”
“I won’t.”
“And Tavia?”
“Yes?”
“We just located Corwin’s car.”
“Where?”
“Airport parking.”
My stomach dropped.
“He left?”
“We don’t think so.”
“Why?”
“Because the car has been sitting there for six days.”
I stared into the darkness.
“Then where is he?”
“We don’t know.”
The next morning, the answer arrived.
Not from Vance.
Not from the police.
Not from Mr. Dacre.
At 7:16 a.m., someone knocked on my coworker’s front door.
We froze.
She looked at me.
I called Vance before approaching.
Police were dispatched.
The knocking stopped.
When officers arrived, nobody was outside.
But there was a package on the porch.
Brown paper.
No return address.
My name written across the front.
Inside was one object.
Corwin’s expensive watch.
The same watch he had bought while our refrigerator was broken.
The same watch purchased with money labeled as a roof repair.
Wrapped around it was a strip of paper.
Five words.
I NEVER WANTED HIM DEAD.
I read it twice.
Then a third time.
Because there are sentences that answer questions.
And there are sentences that create questions so terrible you wish you had never started asking.
I looked at Detective Vance.
She looked at me.
Neither of us said Dad’s name.
We didn’t have to.
For the first time since the $1.94 request appeared on my phone, I no longer cared about Corwin’s money.
I no longer cared about the trust.
I no longer cared about the development corridor.
I wanted one thing.
The truth about March nineteenth.
And somewhere out there, my ex-husband knew exactly what it was.
END OF PART 7
