Chương 8
“Daddy?”
I turned immediately.
She stood halfway down the steps holding her stuffed rabbit against her chest.
The sight of her brought me back to reality.
Not the investigation.
Not Northline.
Not William.
Not my family.
My daughter.
I walked toward her.
“Sweetheart, you should be sleeping.”
She looked past me toward everyone in the room.
“Did you find Mommy?”
The question stopped me.
Children had a way of cutting through everything adults built around themselves.
Not the lies.
Not the excuses.
Not the complicated explanations.
Just the thing that hurt.
“No,” I said quietly.
Her face fell.
“But you're looking.”
I nodded.
“I am.”
She seemed to accept that answer.
Children did not need promises that everything would be okay.
Sometimes they only needed to know someone was still trying.
I carried her back upstairs.
When I returned, Detective Cole was standing in the doorway.
I had not heard her arrive.
That bothered me.
“How long have you been there?”
“Long enough.”
Her eyes moved across the room.
She noticed my mother's expression.
Derek's tension.
The laptop.
“Something happened.”
I told her everything.
Not every emotion.
Not every suspicion.
Just the facts.
She listened without interrupting.
When I finished, she looked at Teresa.
“You spoke with William Vance before Mr. Carter returned.”
My mother nodded.
“Yes.”
“And you did not tell investigators?”
“I didn't know it mattered.”
Detective Cole looked at her.
“Mrs. Carter, people usually say that when something matters more than they want to admit.”
My mother looked down.
“I was afraid.”
The answer was simple.
Human.
And somehow that made it harder.
“Afraid of what?” Cole asked.
Teresa did not answer.
Derek did.
“She was afraid of losing the family.”
My mother looked at him.
“You don't understand.”
“No.”
His voice was quiet.
“I do.”
The two of them stared at each other.
There was years of resentment between them.
But there was also something else.
Recognition.
They had both spent years carrying the same family secret in different ways.
Detective Cole walked toward the laptop.
“Who had access to this?”
I looked at the flash drive.
“Only us.”
“That is not what I asked.”
I frowned.
“What?”
“Who could have accessed the laptop remotely?”
I looked at Derek.
He shook his head.
“Clara wasn't careless.”
“Was it connected to the internet?”
“Yes.”
“Was anyone else aware of this device?”
Derek hesitated.
I noticed.
“Derek.”
He looked uncomfortable.
“Clara was worried someone might monitor her accounts.”
My stomach dropped.
“What?”
“She asked me to help her secure some things.”
“Why didn't you tell me?”
“Because she asked me not to.”
I was tired of hearing those words.
Because she asked me not to.
Everyone had used my wife's trust as a reason to keep me away.
But maybe Clara had a reason.
Maybe she knew something about me that I didn't know.
Detective Cole removed the flash drive carefully.
“We need to preserve this.”
“Can you recover the file?”
“Maybe.”
“Maybe?”
She looked at me.
“Mr. Carter, computers are not magic boxes where deleted things always disappear or always come back.”
I nodded.
It was a reasonable answer.
I hated reasonable answers.
I wanted certainty.
I wanted someone to tell me exactly who had done this.
Instead, I had more questions than before.
The next morning, I woke up on the couch.
I did not remember falling asleep.
The house looked different in daylight.
Less like a crime scene.
More like a home that had forgotten how to be one.
There was a coffee mug on the counter.
Clara's mug.
The one with the small crack near the handle.
She refused to throw it away.
“It still works,” she would say whenever I mentioned replacing it.
I held it for a moment.
Then I put it down.
My phone rang.
It was my employer.
I almost didn't answer.
Then I saw the name.
Northline Human Resources.
“Mr. Carter?”
“Yes.”
“We need you to come in today.”
“Why?”
There was a pause.
That pause had become familiar.
“Because there are questions regarding your recent assignment.”
I felt my jaw tighten.
“What questions?”
“We would prefer to discuss this in person.”
That was not an answer.
It was an instruction.
When I hung up, I saw Derek standing in the doorway.
“You shouldn't go.”
I looked at him.
“Why?”
“Because they know.”
“Know what?”
“That you found something.”
I grabbed my jacket.
“You don't get to tell me what I can and cannot do.”
He nodded slowly.
“I know.”
The response surprised me.
“You're not going to argue?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because Clara told me you would do this.”
I stopped.
“What?”
“She said you would walk into danger if you thought it was the only way to protect someone.”
The words hurt.
Because they sounded exactly like her.
“What else did she say?”
Derek looked away.
“She said your biggest weakness was believing people could become better if you gave them enough chances.”
I smiled sadly.
“That sounds like her.”
“Yeah.”
For a moment, neither of us spoke.
The anger between us had not disappeared.
But something had changed.
We were no longer two brothers standing on opposite sides of a mystery.
We were two people who had both lost the same person.
At Northline headquarters, the atmosphere was different.
People avoided eye contact.
Conversations stopped when I walked past.
I reached the conference room and found William already there.
But he was not alone.
Two company attorneys sat beside him.
That told me everything.
This was not a conversation.
It was preparation.
William gestured toward a chair.
“Alex.”
I sat.
One attorney opened a folder.
“Mr. Carter, we need to review some concerns regarding company equipment and confidential information.”
I looked at William.
“Is this about Clara?”
Nobody answered.
That was answer enough.
“You think I stole something?”
The attorney spoke carefully.
“We are not making accusations.”
“You brought lawyers.”
“That is standard procedure.”
I almost laughed.
Everything had become standard procedure.
May you like
My wife dying.
My family lying.
