Chapter 6 - My Father’s Last Eleven Days
For thirteen years, I had believed my father’s death was ordinary.
Rain.
A highway.
A truck crossing the center line.
An accident report my mother kept in a box because she could never bring herself to throw it away.
Now Samantha wanted that box.
By evening, we had photographs of everything spread across my dining table.
The police report contained one detail I had never noticed.
Dad hadn’t been driving home.
He had been traveling north toward Duluth.
Inside the old wooden box, Evelyn found a motel receipt from the same route dated one week earlier.
“What was he doing there?”
Mom shook her head.
Then I found handwriting on the back.
F.W. knows. Don’t trust D.
D.
Denise?
It seemed obvious.
Too obvious.
Samantha warned me not to decide before the evidence did.
The next surprise came from Tyler.
He called me at 11:43 p.m.
“I need protection.”
I almost hung up.
“From whom?”
“My mother.”
I laughed once.
“You expect me to believe that?”
“No. But you should believe this.”
A photograph arrived.
It showed Denise’s basement records before the court officer entered.
Someone had already removed several binders.
“Who took them?”
“I did.”
“Why?”
“Because Mom told me to burn them.”
My stomach tightened.
“Where are they?”
“Safe.”
“What do you want?”
Tyler lowered his voice.
“Immunity from whatever Samantha is building.”
“You forged my signature.”
Silence.
Then: “Not the first one.”
That sentence mattered.
“Who did?”
“I can’t tell you on the phone.”
“Then come to Samantha’s office tomorrow.”
“I can’t.”
“Why?”
“Because Mark will know.”
I looked across the room.
My husband was asleep on the couch.
“What does Mark have to do with it?”
Tyler breathed hard.
“You think Mom is the mastermind because she’s loud. That’s what everybody thinks.”
My grip tightened around the phone.
“Tyler.”
“Ask Mark what happened at North Star on October seventeenth.”
The call ended.
I searched the date.
October 17 was six years earlier.
Three days before Mark first messaged me online.
And in one of the old company ledgers, that same date appeared beside a $40,000 payment.
May you like
The recipient line contained only two words.
M. Walker.
