Chương 7
Detective Alvarez nodded.
“I’ll request access through the proper channels.”
He looked at me.
“But Victoria?”
“Yes?”
“Be careful who you contact.”
I frowned.
“Why?”
“Because whoever came into this office knew where to look.”
The room became quiet.
The detective looked at the notebook.
“People who steal usually take the obvious things.”
He tapped the cover.
“People who search take their time.”
I looked around Lucas’s office.
At the desk.
The drawer.
The empty spaces.
Someone had not just wanted what Lucas owned.
Someone had been trying to understand what Lucas knew.
And suddenly my father’s visit felt less like an attempt to take a house.
It felt like a race.
A race to find something before I did.
A race to find something before I did.
That thought followed me for the rest of the afternoon.
Detective Alvarez took the notebook as evidence after making copies, and I watched him place it carefully into an evidence bag.
The action felt strangely ordinary.
A plastic bag.
A signature.
A receipt.
A procedure.
Yet inside that bag was a piece of Lucas’s final months.
A piece of the life I thought I understood.
After he left, I stood in the office doorway.
I expected to feel angry.
Instead, I felt tired.
Not the kind of tired that came from missing sleep.
The kind that came from realizing you had been living inside a story someone else was writing.
Samantha closed her laptop.
“You should eat.”
I looked at her.
“Did Lucas pay you to tell me that?”
She almost smiled.
“No.”
“Because he would have.”
“He did tell me once that if I ever represented you, I was not allowed to let you survive on coffee and stubbornness.”
I looked toward the kitchen.
“That sounds like him.”
“It does.”
For a moment, neither of us moved.
Then Samantha said something I did not expect.
“You can be angry with him.”
I looked back.
“What?”
“For keeping things from you.”
The words landed harder because they were true.
I had spent days defending Lucas in my mind.
He was gone.
He could not explain.
He could not apologize.
It felt unfair to be angry at someone who was not here.
But I was.
“I hate that he knew.”
Samantha nodded.
“I know.”
“I hate that he was scared and didn’t tell me.”
“He probably thought he was protecting you.”
“I know.”
My voice broke.
“That’s the problem.”
I sat down in Lucas’s chair.
“I know him.”
And that was what made it painful.
Because I knew exactly why he did it.
Lucas had always carried things quietly.
When his mother was sick, he became the person everyone called.
When his company struggled during its first year, he worked nights instead of admitting he was afraid.
When we argued, he needed time before talking because he wanted to be certain he said the right thing.
He was not secretive because he did not trust me.
He was secretive because he thought love meant carrying the weight alone.
I hated that about him.
I loved that about him.
Both things were true.
My phone rang.
I looked down.
Unknown number.
Samantha noticed.
“Don’t answer.”
I stared at the screen.
The call stopped.
A second later, a voicemail notification appeared.
Then another.
Then another.
Three messages.
Same number.
I played the first.
“Victoria, this is Mark Ellison.”
My entire body went still.
The accountant.
“Your father told me there might be some confusion after everything that happened. I think we should talk before this gets out of control.”
The message ended.
I played the second.
“Victoria, I know this situation looks bad, but I promise there’s an explanation.”
The third came thirty seconds later.
“Please call me. This affects more people than just you.”
I looked at Samantha.
“He knows.”
She did not answer.
That was answer enough.
“What?”
“He knows about the investigation.”
“How?”
Samantha picked up her phone.
“I’m going to check something.”
She walked toward the window.
I watched her type.
A few seconds later, her expression changed.
“What?”
She turned around.
“Your father was released.”
I stared at her.
“Already?”
“He was questioned.”
“That’s it?”
“Victoria, unless there is immediate evidence requiring detention, they don’t just keep someone because we believe they did something wrong.”
I knew she was right.
That did not make it easier.
“He hurt me.”
“I know.”
“He threw me out of my own house.”
“I know.”
“But he gets to go home?”
Samantha looked down.
“That is how the system works.”
The answer was frustrating because it was not a betrayal.
It was reality.
Real life did not always move according to pain.
The person who hurt you did not automatically lose.
The person who was right did not automatically win.
Sometimes you had to prove what happened.
Sometimes you had to wait.
Sometimes the truth arrived slowly.
My father understood that.
He had spent his entire life using time as a weapon.
By evening, the house felt too quiet.
Samantha left after making sure the locks were changed.
Not all of them.
Just the ones she could legally have changed immediately.
The rest required permission because of the ownership situation.
Even my own house had rules I did not understand.
That bothered me more than I expected.
I made tea.
Then forgot about it.
I stood in the kitchen staring at the cup until the water became cold.
The house had always been full of small sounds.
Lucas humming.
Cabinet doors opening.
The television playing something neither of us was watching.
Now every sound felt like evidence of absence.
I walked into the garage.
Lucas’s tools were still arranged along the wall.
He labeled everything.
Screws.
Bolts.
Electrical parts.
I used to tease him.
“You know nobody is going to rob us and think, ‘Forget the money, take the organized screwdriver drawer.’”
He told me organization was a form of optimism.
May you like
I picked up one of his old work gloves.
The leather was worn at the fingertips.
