Chapter 11 - My father had lied too
The timestamp appeared impossible.
My father died sixteen years earlier.
The video was dated fourteen years ago.
Two-year difference.
Could the timestamp be wrong?
Possible.
Investigators checked metadata.
Not definitive.
Then Thomas Blake saw the footage.
“That’s him.”
My father looked older than I remembered.
Gray at the temples.
He sat in the underground room beneath the pool.
Victor stood across from him.
Samuel nearby.
My father said:
“I’m done.”
Victor:
“You’ve said that before.”
“I mean it.”
“You don’t get to leave with copies.”
My father laughed.
“You think I’d bring them here?”
Victor leaned closer.
“Daniel will eventually look.”
My name.
My father answered:
“Daniel thinks I’m dead.”
The room around me disappeared.
He had staged his death too.
Heart attack?
Apparently not.
The funeral had been closed casket because, according to my aunt, “the mortician recommended it.”
I had never questioned it.
Why would I?
Normal people believe funerals.
My father disappeared because the property fraud had escalated into something larger.
The video suggested he and Samuel had helped Victor steal identities and launder property ownership.
When investigators began circling, my father staged his death.
Then regretted it.
He wanted out.
Victor refused.
Did my father survive after that video?
Unknown.
Thomas had not heard from him in more than a decade.
I felt sick.
Everyone had lied.
Elena.
Julian.
Mrs. Harris through fear.
Samuel through cowardice.
My father through self-preservation.
Maya sat beside me.
She squeezed my hand.
“You okay, Dad?”
I almost laughed.
The child who had spent three days in a cage was checking on me.
I knelt.
“You never have to take care of my feelings.”
“I know.”
“Good.”
Then she hugged me anyway.
Because love is different when it is freely given.
Investigators enhanced the final seconds of the video.
As my father stood to leave, he slid something beneath a loose tile.
Victor did not notice.
A ledger?
Maybe.
The tile remained inside the underground chamber.
Police returned.
Beneath it they found a sealed metal case.
Inside was not the ledger.
It was a small audio recorder.
And one photograph.
My father beside a woman.
Elena’s mother.
May you like
Maya’s grandmother.
Two families connected long before our marriage.
