Chương 6
A door closing.
Carter immediately stopped talking.
He looked at me.
"Put everything back."
"No."
"Finnley."
"No."
His voice hardened.
"You don't know what you're doing."
"I spent three years in prison because people decided they knew what I was doing."
I picked up the folder.
"I'm done listening to people tell me to stop looking."
Carter stared at me.
Then he reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone.
"I need to show you something."
I didn't move.
"What?"
He opened his phone and scrolled.
Then he turned the screen toward me.
It was a photograph.
A photograph of my father.
Taken inside the company office.
My father was sitting at his desk.
The date was visible.
Two days before my arrest.
I looked closer.
Something was wrong.
My father was not working.
He was looking directly at the camera.
Like he knew someone was taking the picture.
"Where did you get this?"
Carter locked the phone.
"Reagan's laptop."
My stomach dropped.
"You went through her computer?"
"After Dad died."
"Why?"
"Because I started getting suspicious."
I stared at him.
"Convenient."
"I know how it sounds."
"It sounds like you were helping her until you realized you might get blamed too."
Carter didn't deny it.
That was the first thing he had done all day that made me believe him.
"I was."
The honesty caught me off guard.
"I was protecting myself."
He looked down.
"I spent my whole life doing that."
The confession sat between us.
Ugly.
Real.
Human.
I wanted to hate him.
Part of me still did.
But hatred became harder when people stopped pretending.
"What else did you find?"
Carter hesitated.
"A message."
"From who?"
"I don't know."
"What did it say?"
He looked toward the hallway again.
Then back at me.
"It said, 'The son will take the fall. Make sure Camden doesn't change his mind.'"
The room seemed to tilt.
"Who sent it?"
"I don't know."
"You expect me to believe that?"
"I don't expect anything from you."
That answer was so unlike Carter that I stopped.
He continued.
"Because I know what I look like."
He pointed toward the documents.
"I know what you think."
"You stole from him."
"Yes."
The direct answer surprised me.
"I did."
He swallowed.
"But I didn't frame you."
The silence after that was uncomfortable.
Not dramatic.
Just two people standing in a storage unit surrounded by evidence of a family falling apart.
My father had always said families were not broken by one big thing.
They broke through hundreds of small choices.
One lie.
One excuse.
One moment where someone decided avoiding pain was easier than facing it.
A shadow moved across the hallway.
Carter noticed it before I did.
His face changed.
"Go."
I looked at the entrance.
"Who is it?"
"Go now."
The urgency in his voice finally convinced me.
I grabbed the folder, the letter, and the key.
Carter stepped in front of the doorway.
"What are you doing?"
"Buying you time."
I stared at him.
"Why?"
He gave a tired smile.
"Because Dad was right about one thing."
"What?"
"He said you deserved better than what we gave you."
Before I could answer, footsteps approached.
Carter pushed the storage door halfway closed.
I moved toward the back wall.
There was a narrow gap between units where maintenance equipment was stored.
Not a real exit.
Not a good plan.
But prison taught me something important.
A perfect plan was rare.
A chance was enough.
I squeezed through the gap.
From the other side, I heard the door open.
A woman's voice followed.
Reagan.
"Carter."
Her tone was calm.
Too calm.
"Why are you here?"
Carter answered.
"I could ask you the same thing."
A pause.
Then Reagan spoke.
"Where is he?"
I stopped breathing.
She was not asking about the storage unit.
She was asking about me.
Carter said nothing.
Reagan's voice became colder.
"You always were weak when it mattered."
"Maybe."
A long silence.
"But you were never weak, right?"
I heard something shift.
Then Reagan said quietly.
"Your father should have listened to me."
My hand tightened around the folder.
Carter replied.
"My father listened to you too much."
The silence afterward felt dangerous.
Then Reagan said something that changed everything.
"Your father was alive when Finnley went to trial."
I froze.
My fingers went numb.
Because I had spent three years believing my father abandoned me.
Believing he was gone.
Believing he never had the chance to help.
But according to Reagan...
He was alive.
And he knew.
The words stayed in the air.
Alive.
Alive when I went to trial.
Alive when strangers sat in a courtroom and described me as a criminal.
Alive when the prosecutor held up evidence and told the jury my father had lost trust in his own son.
Alive when I looked toward the back row every day hoping to see him.
I pressed my hand against the cold metal wall beside me.
My knees almost gave out.
Because there was one memory from the trial that had never made sense.
The empty seat.
Everyone else had someone.
The prosecutor had his team.
The company lawyers had their folders.
Carter had shown up twice, sitting in the back with his arms crossed.
But my father’s seat stayed empty.
I had convinced myself it was because he hated me.
Because he believed I had betrayed him.
Because maybe losing his company mattered more than losing his son.
But if Reagan was telling the truth, then the empty seat meant something else.
He was alive.
And he chose not to come.
"Carter," Reagan said.
Her voice was low.
"Where is he?"
I could not see their faces from where I was hiding.
I could only hear them.
Carter sounded different.
Not confident.
Not defensive.
Afraid.
"I don't know."
"You expect me to believe that?"
"I don't care what you believe."
A short silence followed.
Then Reagan laughed softly.
May you like
It was not a happy sound.
"You really think you can suddenly become a good person?"
