Chapter 6 - THE SECRET BEHIND MY FATHER'S LAST ACCIDENTFor several seconds, I couldn't move.
I sat in the bank conference room staring at my phone while Margaret studied my face.
"Emily?"
I looked up.
"Vanessa just called."
Margaret's eyebrows rose.
"What did she say?"
I swallowed.
"She said Robert found out what Dad left behind."
"What does that mean?"
I could barely force the words out.
"She mentioned an accident."
Margaret went very still.
"What accident?"
I stared at her.
Then I whispered, "The one Dad had three months before he died."
My father had been involved in a minor collision at the intersection of Riverside Drive and North Avenue.
At least, that was what we had believed.
He was driving home from the grocery store when another vehicle struck the passenger side of his pickup truck.
The driver left before police arrived.
Dad suffered a broken wrist and severe bruising.
His doctor also discovered a heart condition during follow-up testing.
Jake used to say the accident was a blessing in disguise because it forced Dad to receive medical attention.
I had repeated those words myself.
Now they made me sick.
Margaret slowly closed her briefcase.
"Emily, tell me everything you remember."
I explained the collision.
The unidentified driver.
The police report.
The damage to Dad's truck.
Jake's insistence that Dad was probably responsible because older drivers had slower reflexes.
Then I remembered something.
Dad had been angry when I visited him after the accident.
Not frightened.
Angry.
He had said, "Some people think you can scare an old man into keeping his mouth shut."
I had assumed he meant the hit-and-run driver.
But now I wasn't sure.
Margaret took out her phone.
"I'm calling Daniel."
"Do you think Jake arranged the accident?"
"I don't know. And we cannot assume that from a frightened phone call."
She spoke carefully.
"But we need to preserve whatever evidence exists and take Vanessa's statement seriously."
I nodded.
My hands were still shaking.
Outside the bank, Jake was pacing beside his car.
He had called me four times.
I ignored every call.
When Margaret finished speaking with Daniel, she looked at me.
"He wants us to come back to the office."
"What about the accident?"
"He's found information related to the insurance claim."
I stared at her.
"How?"
"Your father kept copies of nearly everything. Daniel located the repair paperwork among his records."
I laughed weakly.
"Of course he did."
Dad was the only person I knew who saved receipts for batteries.
Margaret placed a hand on my shoulder.
"Emily, your father was careful. But please remember that a collection of documents isn't the same as proof of a crime. We need the facts."
"I know."
I looked through the conference-room window.
Jake was standing outside, talking angrily into his phone.
Then he turned toward the building.
For a moment, our eyes met through the glass.
He raised his phone and pointed at it.
An unmistakable command.
Answer me.
I turned away.
At Margaret's office, Daniel had spread several documents across the conference table.
Claire was sitting beside him.
When she saw me, she stood immediately.
"How bad?"
"Worse than yesterday."
Her face darkened.
"That man better hope I never see him again."
Daniel cleared his throat.
"We have something important."
He showed me a photograph of Dad's damaged pickup.
The passenger-side door was crushed inward.
"Your father took this photograph himself," Daniel said.
"He was always taking pictures."
"He also photographed a broken piece of plastic he found near the scene."
Daniel showed me another image.
A fragment of black plastic marked with a manufacturer's code.
"What is it?"
"Possibly part of a vehicle's exterior trim. We haven't had it independently examined."
My heart pounded.
"Did the police see it?"
"The records suggest he reported finding it. We're requesting the complete case file."
Daniel slid over the next page.
It was an invoice from an auto body shop.
A black SUV.
Repairs to the front passenger-side bumper.
The customer's name was printed at the top.
Robert Mitchell.
I stared.
The repair date was two days after Dad's collision.
"Robert?"
Daniel nodded.
"The timing raises questions. It doesn't establish that his vehicle was involved."
I looked at the photograph.
The black SUV outside the bank.
The one Robert had stood beside with Jake and Vanessa.
I remembered seeing it at Jake's office.
I remembered a dark scratch near the bumper.
At the time, Robert claimed someone had hit him in a parking lot.
"Did Dad know?"
Margaret picked up the blue notebook.
"He may have suspected."
She opened it to a page dated four days after the accident.
Dad had written:
R.M. — black SUV. Bumper replaced. Ask about witnesses.
Below that, in smaller handwriting:
Jake says stop asking questions.
I stared at those words.
My husband had told my injured father to stop looking into the driver who hit him.
"Why would he do that?"
Nobody answered.
Then Daniel placed one final document in front of me.
An email Dad had printed.
The sender was an insurance adjuster.
The message said an investigator had attempted to contact Robert Mitchell regarding a potential vehicle match.
The inquiry had been closed without a confirmed identification.
I looked up.
"Why wasn't Robert charged?"
"Because suspicion isn't enough," Daniel said. "The authorities apparently lacked sufficient evidence to identify the vehicle."
I pressed my palms against the table.
"Then how do we find the truth?"
"We provide the new information to the proper investigators and allow them to assess it."
Claire moved closer to me.
"Em, are you okay?"
I shook my head.
"No."
And suddenly, I wasn't.
I was furious.
Not just at Jake.
At myself.
At every excuse I had accepted.
At every moment when I had chosen to protect my husband's feelings instead of listening to my father.
I stood.
"I need some air."
Claire followed me outside.
We walked behind the office to a small courtyard.
There were two wooden benches beneath a magnolia tree.
Dad used to say magnolias were proof that Georgia knew how to make something beautiful out of miserable heat.
I sat down.
Claire sat beside me.
For a while, neither of us spoke.
Then I whispered, "I should have believed him."
Claire turned toward me.
"Believed what?"
"Everything. The warnings. The arguments. The way Dad looked at Jake."
"Emily—"
"I made him feel like he was the problem."
Tears filled my eyes.
"One night, Dad asked me whether I really knew what Jake was doing with our finances. I got so angry that I didn't speak to him for almost two weeks."
Claire took my hand.
"He knew you loved him."
"How can you be sure?"
"Because he never stopped loving you."
I looked away.
Claire squeezed my fingers.
"Your dad came to my classroom last spring."
I turned.
"What?"
"He brought me a box of old books for the reading corner."
I smiled through my tears.
"That sounds like him."
"He asked about you."
My throat tightened.
"What did he say?"
"He said you had the biggest heart he'd ever known. And he worried somebody was taking advantage of it."
I closed my eyes.
Claire continued.
"I told him I would always be there for you."
A tear slid down my cheek.
"And he said, 'Good. Because one day my girl might need somebody who isn't afraid to tell her the truth.'"
I covered my mouth.
Claire hugged me.
We stayed that way until my phone buzzed.
A message from Vanessa.
I need to talk. Alone. Jake doesn't know I'm contacting you.
I showed Claire.
She immediately shook her head.
"No."
"Claire—"
"Absolutely not. That woman has been sleeping with your husband."
"I know."
"Then why would you meet her?"
"Because she knows something."
Claire studied the message.
"Or because they're trying to trap you."
She was right.
I forwarded it to Margaret.
Within minutes, Margaret called.
"Do not meet her alone."
"I wasn't planning to."
"If she wants to provide information, she can speak with us or with the appropriate authorities."
I hesitated.
"Do you think she's telling the truth?"
"I think she's frightened. Whether she's frightened of Jake, Robert, or her own involvement, we don't know."
I looked at Vanessa's message again.
Then I typed a response.
If you have information about my father, speak with my attorney. She can arrange a meeting with independent witnesses.
Vanessa replied almost immediately.
I can't. Robert will ruin me.
Another message.
You don't understand what Jake promised him.
I stared at the screen.
What did Jake promise? I typed.
The answer appeared twenty seconds later.
Your father's house.
My heart stopped.
Dad's house?
The small brick home where I grew up?
The place where Mom had planted roses beside the front steps?
I called Margaret.
"Vanessa says Jake promised Robert my father's house."
Margaret was silent.
Then she said, "That's impossible without your cooperation or some other claimed authority."
"Unless he forged something."
"We need to verify the property records."
I stood.
"Margaret, please."
"I'm already checking."
Ten minutes later, she called back.
Her tone was different.
Controlled.
Sharp.
"Emily, your father recorded a notice of concern regarding a document presented against his property shortly before he died."
"What document?"
"A purported purchase agreement."
I stared into the courtyard.
"Purchase agreement?"
"Someone appears to have prepared paperwork claiming your father had agreed to sell his house to Southern Crest Capital."
I couldn't breathe.
"Did Dad sign it?"
"He denied signing it. The matter was disputed and unresolved when he died."
I remembered the house.
The white porch swing.
The worn hardwood floors.
Mom's roses.
Dad's work boots beside the back door.
They were trying to take that too.
"How much?"
Margaret hesitated.
"The agreement lists a purchase price of one hundred and forty thousand dollars."
I nearly dropped the phone.
Dad's house was worth far more.
"That's ridiculous."
"Yes."
"Who prepared it?"
"We're checking."
Then Margaret said something that made my stomach twist.
"The purported witness signature belongs to someone you know."
I whispered, "Who?"
"Your husband."
I stared at the sky.
For eleven years, Jake had told me that marriage meant sharing everything.
Apparently, he meant everything I owned.
My money.
My future.
My father's home.
Even the truth.
That afternoon, Vanessa finally agreed to speak with Margaret and an investigator.
But she made one condition.
Jake couldn't know where she was.
At four-thirty, I sat in a small conference room with Margaret.
A recording device rested on the table, used with everyone's consent.
The door opened.
Vanessa entered.
Her makeup was smeared.
Her hands shook.
She looked nothing like the polished woman from dinner.
She sat across from me.
For a long moment, we stared at each other.
Then she whispered, "I'm sorry."
I didn't answer.
She swallowed.
"Jake told me your marriage was over."
I looked at her.
"Did he tell you my father was dead too?"
She flinched.
"I deserve that."
"You deserve a lot more than that."
Margaret gently interrupted.
"Vanessa, we're here to hear what you know."
Vanessa nodded.
Then she reached into her handbag.
She removed a small flash drive.
"Robert told me to delete these."
My pulse quickened.
"What are they?"
"Copies of emails and messages."
"About the money?" Margaret asked.
Vanessa shook her head.
"Some of them."
She looked directly at me.
"One is about the accident."
My fingers curled around the edge of the table.
Vanessa began crying.
"Emily, I didn't know what they were planning until after it happened."
"What happened?"
She closed her eyes.
Then whispered, "Robert wasn't supposed to hit your father's truck."
The room went silent.
May you like
"He was only supposed to frighten him."
And suddenly, the entire story had changed.
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