Chapter 3 - The Man Before Midnight
Children don't tell stories in the order adults want.
That was the first thing the child-interview specialist explained.
Nobody was to interrogate Lydia.
Nobody was to fill in blanks.
Nobody was to ask questions that suggested answers.
So I waited.
A trained interviewer spoke with her while I watched through glass.
Lydia said Trent came home angry around eleven.
Cassidy told Lydia to go upstairs.
Lydia didn't.
She hid on the staircase with her elephant.
Trent yelled about money.
Cassidy said:
“I already told you. I don't have it.”
Trent answered:
“Your mother left it to you.”
That caught my attention.
Elaine left Cassidy a modest life-insurance payment.
Nothing mysterious.
Most had gone toward Cassidy's mortgage.
Then Lydia remembered another sentence.
Trent said:
“Cross found me.”
Daniel.
Cassidy apparently didn't understand.
Neither did I.
Then someone knocked at the back door.
Trent stopped yelling.
A man entered.
Lydia saw only part of him.
Dark jacket.
Work boots.
Leather bracelet.
He spoke quietly to Trent.
Cassidy became frightened.
She told the stranger to leave.
He didn't.
Then Lydia heard:
“Rebecca's account.”
Her grandmother's old name.
The stranger said Cassidy had access.
Cassidy denied knowing Rebecca.
The man laughed.
“You really don't know.”
Then something happened Lydia couldn't clearly describe.
Voices.
Cassidy crying.
Trent shouting.
A crash.
The stranger left through the back door.
Trent left through the front several minutes later.
Lydia found Cassidy on the floor.
She called me.
That was all she could give us.
It was enough.
I confronted Daniel.
“What account?”
He finally explained.
Rebecca—my Elaine—had worked for a company called North Range Mineral Holdings before I met her.
The company purchased mineral rights across Montana and Wyoming.
In 1994, Rebecca discovered internal accounts being used to hide royalties from landowners.
Millions.
She copied records.
Then disappeared.
Daniel believed she had been killed.
Instead, she became Elaine Mercer.
“How?”
“I don't know.”
“Why didn't she contact you?”
“She did.”
Once.
In 1998.
A postcard.
No return address.
Four words:
I'm safe. Stop looking.
Daniel obeyed for seventeen years.
Then Elaine died.
Her obituary appeared online.
He recognized her.
He came to the funeral.
I remembered a man standing far behind the crowd.
Daniel.
He didn't approach us because he believed Elaine had built the life she wanted.
But after her death, someone began moving money from an old Rebecca Cross account.
Not withdrawing it.
Moving it between shell companies.
Daniel investigated.
Eventually one name appeared repeatedly.
Trent Huxley.
My son-in-law.
I felt sick.
“How long?”
“Three years.”
“Why didn't you tell Cassidy?”
“I tried.”
Trent intercepted him.
They began communicating privately.
Trent claimed Cassidy knew everything and wanted the money hidden.
Daniel didn't believe him.
Then two nights ago, Trent called Daniel in panic.
He said Cassidy had been injured.
He wanted Daniel to collect the documents before police arrived.
Daniel drove over.
“That was the SUV?”
“Yes.”
“Why were you in the back seat?”
“I wasn't.”
I stared.
“You got out of the back.”
“I got into the SUV after Trent picked me up. I was searching the briefcase in the back while he drove.”
“Whose SUV?”
Daniel hesitated.
“Brock Timmons's.”
The deputy's vehicle.
But Brock hadn't been driving.
“Who was?”
Daniel looked toward the interview room.
“The man Lydia saw before midnight.”
“Name.”
Daniel answered:
“Caleb Timmons.”
May you like
Brock's older brother.
A man officially dead for twenty-eight years.
