Chương 3
Michael beside him.
Daniel was younger in the picture, barely visible through the front window.
For years, Daniel had hated that picture because it reminded him of the life he left.
Now he hated it because he wondered what else had been happening while everyone smiled.
“The bank records show money leaving the company account,” Harris said.
Daniel leaned forward.
“How much?”
“Enough to raise questions.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It’s the answer I can give you right now.”
Daniel looked away.
He had spent three days imagining this moment.
He imagined someone finally explaining everything.
Instead, he was sitting across from another person carefully choosing words.
“What happened to my brother?”
Harris folded his hands.
“Your brother was arrested because his signature appears on several transfers.”
Daniel waited.
“That’s it?”
“That’s not nothing.”
“No. But it’s not proof either.”
The detective did not respond immediately.
That pause told Daniel more than he expected.
“You don’t think he did it.”
“I think there are questions.”
“Everyone has questions.”
“Yes.”
The detective tapped the folder.
“But there’s one thing that doesn’t fit.”
Daniel looked at him.
“What?”
“Your father reported the missing money before he died.”
The room became very quiet.
Daniel stared.
“My father?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Three weeks before his death.”
Daniel felt a strange pressure behind his eyes.
Three weeks.
The letter.
The date.
He had seen it.
He had not processed it.
His father had not been hiding the problem.
He had been trying to expose it.
“Why didn’t anyone tell me?”
Detective Harris looked at him.
“That’s what we’re trying to understand.”
Daniel left the interview room with less certainty than when he entered.
That was becoming a pattern.
Outside, his phone showed twelve missed calls.
Eight from his mother.
Four from unknown numbers.
He ignored the unknown ones.
He called his mother.
She answered immediately.
“You talked to them?”
Daniel leaned against the hallway wall.
“Mom.”
“Did they ask about your father?”
“Mom.”
A silence.
Not the peaceful kind.
The kind where someone realizes they have said too much.
“What do you know?” Daniel asked.
“I don’t know anything.”
“You just asked if they talked about Dad.”
“I’m your mother. I know when something is wrong.”
Daniel closed his eyes.
He almost laughed.
His mother had spent twenty years refusing to say when something was wrong.
Now she wanted credit for noticing.
“Why didn’t you tell me Dad reported the money?”
Nothing.
Not even a denial.
“Mom?”
“I didn’t know if it was true.”
Daniel pushed away from the wall.
“What does that mean?”
“It means your father accused people of things when he was angry.”
“People?”
Another silence.
Then:
“Michael wasn’t the only person involved.”
The hallway seemed louder suddenly.
A child crying near the elevators.
Someone arguing about a parking ticket.
A printer running behind a clerk’s desk.
Normal sounds.
Impossible sounds.
Because Daniel’s family had just become larger than the two brothers standing against each other.
“Who else?” Daniel asked.
His mother breathed into the phone.
“I shouldn’t have answered.”
“Mom.”
“I have to go.”
The call ended.
Daniel stared at the screen.
For years, he had believed his mother stayed quiet because she was weak.
Now he wondered if she stayed quiet because she was scared of something he never saw.
When Daniel returned to the parking lot, Michael was waiting beside his car.
His attorney was gone.
The first thing Daniel noticed was that Michael looked angry.
Not defensive.
Angry.
That was new.
“You talked to Harris,” Michael said.
Daniel stopped.
“How do you know?”
“Because they called me.”
“And?”
Michael looked toward the courthouse.
“They asked about Dad’s report.”
Daniel held still.
“So you knew.”
Michael rubbed his forehead.
“I knew he filed something.”
“You knew my father reported missing money?”
“Yes.”
The answer was immediate.
Too immediate.
Daniel stepped closer.
“And you let me think you were the only person hiding something.”
Michael’s jaw tightened.
“You think I wanted this?”
“I think you had twenty years.”
“I had twenty years of watching Mom fall apart.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“No,” Michael said. “It’s the part you keep skipping.”
Daniel hated the way Michael said his name.
Not angry.
Not accusing.
Like he was talking to someone younger.
Someone who still did not understand.
“What did Dad find?” Daniel asked.
Michael looked at the envelope.
“He found out the money wasn’t taken the way he thought.”
Daniel stared.
“What does that mean?”
“It means the paperwork was wrong.”
“That’s all?”
“No.”
Michael looked around the parking lot.
A woman loaded groceries into her trunk.
A man sat in his car eating lunch.
Nobody cared that two brothers were standing ten feet apart with twenty years between them.
“Dad thought I stole from him,” Michael said.
Daniel’s expression changed.
“You?”
Michael laughed quietly.
“Yeah.”
“Did you?”
“No.”
The answer came without hesitation.
Daniel searched his face.
“You expect me to believe that?”
“No.”
That surprised him.
Michael looked exhausted.
“I expect you to read the rest of the letter.”
Daniel looked down at the envelope.
“You haven’t told me what it says.”
“Because I’m not the one who wrote it.”
A gust of wind pulled at the corner of the papers inside.
Daniel felt the old yellow tape against his fingers.
“What are you afraid I’ll find?”
Michael looked at him.
For once, he did not avoid the question.
“I’m afraid you’ll find out Dad was wrong about me.”
Daniel waited.
“And?”
Michael swallowed.
“I’m more afraid you’ll find out he was right about someone else.”
Before Daniel could ask who, his phone rang.
Unknown number.
He almost ignored it.
Then Michael saw the screen.
His face changed.
“Don’t answer that.”
Daniel looked up.
“Why?”
Michael stepped forward.
“Because that number called Dad three days before he died.”
The phone continued vibrating in Daniel’s hand.
May you like
For the first time since opening the workshop wall, he understood the envelope was not just evidence of what happened twenty years ago.
Someone was still watching what happened next.
