Chương 9
Samantha exhaled slowly.
“Where are you?”
“Driving home.”
“Go there.”
“I’m already going.”
“Victoria.”
Something in her voice made me slow down.
“Do not meet with Mark alone.”
“I wasn’t planning to.”
“Good.”
She paused.
“Because I need to tell you something.”
I tightened my grip on the steering wheel.
“What?”
“I found something from Lucas’s company records.”
“What?”
“A transfer.”
“What kind of transfer?”
“A large payment.”
“To who?”
She hesitated.
That was becoming a pattern.
“Samantha.”
“It went through a consulting company.”
“What company?”
She gave me the name.
I did not recognize it.
“Who owns it?”
“An attorney is checking.”
“Why does that matter?”
“Because the company was created six months ago.”
I felt my stomach tighten.
“By who?”
Another pause.
Then she said it.
“Courtney Baldwin.”
The road seemed to disappear for a second.
I pulled into a parking lot and stopped.
“Courtney?”
“Yes.”
“No.”
The word came out automatically.
Not because I trusted Courtney.
Because my mind was trying to place the pieces.
My father’s young wife.
The folder.
The confidence.
The house.
The company.
“How much money?”
“About eighty thousand dollars.”
“For what?”
“We don’t know.”
I stared through the windshield.
People walked past my car carrying bags.
A man laughed while talking on his phone.
A woman chased after a child near the entrance.
The world kept moving.
“You think she was working with him?”
“I think we need evidence before we think anything.”
I closed my eyes.
That was Samantha’s way.
Facts first.
Feelings later.
It was probably why Lucas trusted her.
I wanted to accuse.
She wanted proof.
“What do we do now?”
“First, you rest.”
I almost laughed.
“You sound like Lucas.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“It was.”
The quiet after that felt different.
Less empty.
More familiar.
When I got home, there was an envelope under the front door.
I froze.
I had changed the locks.
The house was supposed to be secure.
I walked closer.
The envelope had my name written on it.
Victoria.
No last name.
No address.
No stamp.
Someone had placed it there.
I did not touch it.
I called Samantha.
She answered on the first ring.
“What happened?”
“There’s an envelope.”
“Where?”
“Inside my door.”
Silence.
“Victoria, step away from it.”
“I already did.”
“Good.”
She was speaking quickly now.
“I’m calling Detective Alvarez.”
I stared at the envelope.
My name.
Lucas’s handwriting would have looked different.
This was not his.
The letters were neat.
Careful.
Almost too careful.
A few minutes later, Detective Alvarez arrived.
He wore the same expression as before.
Calm.
Focused.
But this time, he looked at the envelope longer.
“You recognize the handwriting?”
“No.”
He put on gloves.
“Any idea who left it?”
“No.”
He examined the front.
Then carefully opened it.
Inside was one sheet of paper.
He read it first.
His face changed.
Not much.
But enough.
“What does it say?”
He looked at me.
“It says you need to stop asking questions.”
My heart started beating faster.
“What else?”
He handed me the paper.
The message was only one sentence.
You have no idea what Lucas was protecting you from.
I looked at Samantha.
Then at Detective Alvarez.
The words should have scared me.
They did.
But underneath the fear was something else.
Anger.
Because someone had made the same mistake my father made.
They thought fear would make me smaller.
It did not.
It made me pay attention.
Detective Alvarez folded the paper.
“Victoria.”
“Yes?”
“From this point forward, assume every person connected to this situation has their own version of the truth.”
I looked at the note in my hand.
“Even my husband?”
The detective was quiet.
Samantha looked at me.
Neither of them answered.
And that was when I realized the hardest part was not finding out who betrayed Lucas.
It was discovering how much Lucas had chosen not to tell me.
I kept staring at the note until the words stopped looking like a warning and started looking like a challenge.
Not because I wanted one.
Because I was tired of people deciding what I could handle.
Detective Alvarez took the paper into evidence and photographed the envelope.
He asked me questions about who knew I had returned home, who knew about the investigation, and who had access to my address.
The list was longer than I wanted it to be.
Family.
Employees.
People who had attended the funeral.
People who had called to offer support.
That was the part that hurt most.
Danger was easier to accept when it came from strangers.
It was harder when it wore familiar faces.
Two days later, Mark Ellison finally met with Samantha and me.
Not at the company.
Not at my house.
At a small diner outside Syracuse where nobody knew us and nobody cared about our conversation.
Mark arrived five minutes early.
That surprised me.
Lucas would have noticed.
He always noticed small things about people.
Mark sat across from us and placed a folder on the table.
“I should have come forward sooner.”
Samantha did not touch the folder.
“Why didn’t you?”
Mark looked down.
“Because I was afraid.”
I expected him to defend himself.
He did not.
“I thought if I admitted what I knew, I would lose my job.”
“That’s what you were worried about?” I asked.
His face tightened.
“No.”
The answer came quietly.
“I was worried Lucas was right.”
I looked at him.
“What does that mean?”
Mark opened the folder.
Inside were copies of emails.
Financial records.
Meeting notes.
“I found irregular transfers months ago.”
Samantha leaned forward.
“From the company?”
“Yes.”
“To Courtney’s consulting company?”
Mark nodded.
“I didn’t know it was hers at first.”
He looked at me.
“I thought it was just another outside vendor.”
“How did you find out?”
“Lucas asked me to investigate.”
The words made my chest tighten.
“When?”
“Three months before the accident.”
I looked away.
May you like
Three months.
Lucas had been investigating while we were painting the nursery.
