Chapter 4 - What My Father BuriedI slapped the table.
Not Rebecca.
The table.
Hard enough that Detective Morales entered the interview room.
“My father did not kill Michael.”
Rebecca stared at me through swollen eyes.
“That’s what Christopher told me.”
“Christopher lies.”
“I know.”
“Then why repeat it?”
“Because I saw something.”
That stopped me.
“What?”
Rebecca took a breath.
“When Dad was dying, I went through his study looking for financial records. I found letters between him and Michael.”
“What kind of letters?”
“Arguments.”
Morales remained by the door.
Rebecca continued.
“Michael accused Dad of covering up what happened at Marston.”
That was different from murder.
“What happened at Marston?”
“I never knew.”
“Where are the letters?”
“Christopher has them.”
Of course he did.
For the next four hours, investigators reconstructed a history my family had buried beneath money, grief, and silence.
Marston Chemical had operated between 1972 and 1998.
Officially, it manufactured specialty pharmaceutical ingredients.
Unofficially, federal investigators suspected executives of laundering money through overseas suppliers.
The investigation disappeared after several company officers died or fled the country.
Twenty-four million dollars was never recovered.
In 2009, my father purchased the abandoned property.
Michael discovered underground storage rooms that were not shown on any building plans.
Soon afterward, he died.
But Detective Morales found something Rebecca had not known.
My father was not in Ohio when Michael died.
Flight records placed him in Arizona.
That didn’t completely clear him.
But it destroyed Christopher’s neat version of events.
“What about Christopher?” I asked.
Morales had researchers run his history.
Christopher Hale was forty-nine.
Or at least that was the age on his current birth certificate.
His real name was Christopher Voss.
His father had been Jonathan Voss.
Chief financial officer of Marston Chemical.
I sat motionless.
Christopher’s father had controlled the accounts connected to the missing twenty-four million dollars.
When federal investigators targeted Marston, Jonathan Voss disappeared.
Presumed dead.
No body was recovered.
Christopher changed his surname five years later.
Then he met Michael.
Then Michael died.
Then four years after that, Christopher met me.
It wasn't romance.
It had been infiltration.
Every anniversary, every vacation, every bedtime conversation suddenly became evidence.
I went to the bathroom and vomited.
Toby found me sitting on the floor afterward.
He sat beside me.
“I’m sorry, Mom.”
“Stop apologizing.”
“I brought him into our lives.”
“No. I did.”
“You couldn't know.”
I laughed bitterly.
“You knew enough to save me last night.”
Toby leaned against the wall.
“I almost didn’t check the files.”
“What made you?”
He hesitated.
“Dad asked me something strange.”
“What?”
“Whether your will still left Marston to me.”
My face tightened.
“When?”
“Two months ago.”
Christopher knew if I died, Toby would inherit the property.
Maybe the plan had never ended with me.
I grabbed Toby’s arm.
“You’re staying with police.”
“Mom—”
“No arguments.”
Then my phone rang.
This time, Christopher’s name appeared.
Morales rushed in.
“Answer it.”
She activated recording equipment.
I pressed speaker.
“Christopher.”
His voice was calm.
“Emily.”
I expected anger.
Instead he sounded exhausted.
“Where are you?”
“You already know I’m not answering that.”
“Toby is with you?”
I looked at Morales.
“Yes.”
“Good.”
I nearly laughed.
“Good?”
“Yes.”
“You walked into our bedroom with a syringe.”
“You don't understand what you saw.”
“Then explain.”
Silence.
Christopher sighed.
“The syringe wasn’t poison.”
“What was it?”
“Midazolam.”
Morales wrote the word.
A sedative.
“You planned to drug me.”
“To get you out of the house safely.”
“While carrying documents paying you twenty-four million dollars after my death?”
“Those policies were leverage.”
“For what?”
“Against people much more dangerous than me.”
I stared at the phone.
“What people?”
Christopher’s voice lowered.
“My father.”
The room went still.
Jonathan Voss.
Presumed dead for decades.
“Your father is alive?”
“Yes.”
Rebecca began crying again from the adjoining room.
Christopher continued.
“He came back three years ago.”
Exactly when the attempts on my life began.
“He wanted Marston.”
“Why?”
“Because Michael found the money.”
I gripped the table.
“Michael knew where the twenty-four million was?”
“He knew where the records were. He thought the money itself had been moved years earlier.”
“Did you kill him?”
“No.”
“Did your father?”
Silence.
“Christopher.”
“I don't know.”
It was not the answer I wanted.
“What do you know?”
“I know Michael called me the night before he died. He said if anything happened to him, your father had a key.”
“A key to what?”
“The archive.”
“And why didn't you tell me fourteen years ago?”
“Because I was looking for it too.”
At least that was truthful.
“You married me to get the property.”
“At first.”
Those two words hurt more than denial would have.
“At first?”
“I did things I can never justify.”
“You tried to kill me.”
“No.”
“My brakes failed.”
“My father arranged that.”
“Boston?”
“Him again.”
“And last night?”
“I found out he had someone coming for you. I returned to move you before they arrived.”
“With a syringe?”
“You would never have come willingly.”
“You're right.”
“Emily, listen carefully. The police cannot protect you if my father has what I think he has.”
“What does he have?”
“Names.”
“Whose?”
“Judges. Police. Businessmen. People he paid through Marston for decades.”
Morales frowned.
Christopher spoke faster.
“Your father knew that. Michael knew it. That's why both of them hid pieces of the evidence.”
“Where?”
“I only know your father left you something.”
“The letter?”
“No.”
My pulse quickened.
“He left you a key.”
“I never received any key.”
“Yes, you did.”
“When?”
“The day he died.”
I tried to remember.
My father had been in hospice.
Thin.
Barely awake.
He had pressed something into my hand.
Not a key.
A coin.
An old silver quarter.
I still had it.
Inside a jewelry box at my house.
Christopher whispered, “It isn't a coin.”
The call disconnected.
Morales immediately ordered officers to retrieve the item.
Two hours later, it arrived inside an evidence bag.
The quarter looked exactly as I remembered.
Morales examined it.
Nothing.
Toby held it beneath the desk lamp.
“Wait.”
He twisted the outer rim.
The coin separated.
Inside was a tiny brass key.
Stamped on it were two characters.
B4.
Building Four.
Marston.
That night, officers took us to the abandoned property.
Building Four had been sealed for seventeen years.
The key opened a narrow steel panel hidden behind an electrical cabinet.
Behind it was a staircase.
Thirty-two steps underground.
At the bottom waited a steel door.
Morales raised her weapon.
Two officers forced it open.
Inside were shelves packed with banker boxes.
Hard drives.
Ledgers.
Photographs.
And on the far wall, written in Michael’s handwriting:
EMILY — IF YOU FOUND THIS, THEY FOUND YOU FIRST.
Beneath those words was another sentence.
DO NOT BELIEVE CHRISTOPHER.
Then we heard the steel door slam shut behind us.
May you like
The lights went out.
And someone began pumping gas into the room.
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