Chapter 11 - THE VIDEO FROM FIVE YEARS AGO
Ruiz would not let anyone watch the memory card until the digital forensics unit copied it.
I understood the reason.
I hated the wait.
For hours, I imagined every possible thing the camera might show.
Nathan following Dad.
Paul threatening him.
Margaret meeting him somewhere.
Or nothing.
The worst possibility was that the card contained an ordinary drive and Margaret had kept it for reasons that made sense only to her.
At nine that night, Ruiz called.
The card was readable.
There were six video files from the day my father died.
The final file ended eleven minutes before the reported crash.
I asked to see it.
Ruiz told me to come to the station in the morning.
I said no.
“I have waited five years without knowing there was something to wait for.”
“I’m coming now.”
Olivia drove me.
Robert was already at the station when we arrived.
I did not ask how he knew.
Ruiz had probably called him because Hayes family members appeared throughout the investigation.
We sat in a small evidence review room.
A monitor was mounted on the wall.
Ruiz warned us that the footage might be upsetting.
I almost laughed.
Everything was upsetting now.
He played the first relevant file.
My father’s car was parked outside a restaurant.
The timestamp was wrong by forty minutes, just as Dad had once complained.
After a minute, Paul walked into frame.
He got into the passenger seat.
There was no audio for the first several seconds.
Then Dad restarted the engine and the microphone activated.
Paul’s voice filled the room.
“You are making this bigger than it is.”
My father answered.
“Three million dollars is not a bookkeeping error.”
Robert leaned forward.
Paul continued.
“The money is coming back.”
“Some of it already has.”
“That does not make the transfers legal.”
“You gave Nathan access.”
“I gave him access to one project account.”
“I did not give him permission to route money through Red Cedar.”
My heart pounded.
Dad had discovered Nathan stealing from his company.
Paul sighed.
“David, think about Emily.”
“I am.”
“No, you are thinking about being right.”
“If you take this to police, Nathan goes down.”
“Emily’s marriage goes with him.”
My father’s answer came instantly.
“Then she loses a bad marriage.”
Tears blurred my vision.
Paul’s voice hardened.
“She is pregnant?”
The room inside the station went still.
Five years ago, I had not been pregnant.
I had suffered an early miscarriage three weeks before my father died.
Very few people knew.
Paul must have been referring to that pregnancy.
Dad answered quietly.
“Not anymore.”
There was a long silence in the car.
Then Paul said something that made Robert stand up.
“Margaret said Nathan cannot survive another scandal.”
Robert stared at the screen.
“Another?”
The video continued.
Dad asked the same question.
“What other scandal?”
Paul laughed nervously.
“You know what I mean.”
“No.”
“I don’t.”
Paul opened the passenger door.
“Leave Red Cedar alone.”
My father spoke before he could get out.
“If another dollar moves, I go to the police.”
Paul turned back.
Then he said seven words that changed the room.
“Nathan already knows you found the transfers.”
The video ended a minute later.
Ruiz played the next file.
My father was driving alone.
Rain streaked the windshield.
He called someone through the car’s speaker system.
The screen showed the contact name NATHAN.
My husband answered on the fourth ring.
“David.”
Dad’s voice was hard.
“We need to talk.”
“Paul already talked.”
“Then you know why I am calling.”
A pause.
“I can fix it.”
“You have until morning.”
“Do not threaten me.”
“I am not threatening you.”
“I am telling you when I am going to the police.”
Nathan’s breathing changed.
“Does Emily know?”
“Not yet.”
“Good.”
My father’s voice became colder.
“That is not good.”
“It is good for tonight.”
“You tell her yourself tomorrow.”
Nathan said nothing.
Dad continued.
“And stay away from her until you do.”
The call ended.
I was crying openly now.
Robert stared at the floor.
Ruiz played the final file.
The car moved along the wet highway.
Headlights appeared behind my father.
A dark SUV followed at a steady distance.
It moved closer.
Then closer again.
Dad glanced in the rearview mirror.
“Not tonight.”
His voice was barely audible.
The SUV pulled alongside him.
For two seconds, the side camera captured the driver.
Nathan.
I stopped breathing.
My husband was driving beside my father eleven minutes before the crash.
No police report had ever mentioned him.
Nathan’s SUV moved ahead and disappeared from view.
Dad continued driving.
The video ended abruptly.
“That is all?” I asked.
Ruiz nodded.
“The card stops recording there.”
“What happened in the next eleven minutes?”
“We do not know.”
I looked at Robert.
He had both hands over his mouth.
“You told me Nathan was with you that night.”
Robert looked up.
“What?”
“At the funeral.”
“You said Nathan had been at a company dinner with you when Dad crashed.”
Robert’s face went blank.
Then memory hit him.
“No.”
“I said he was supposed to be.”
“Margaret told police he was with us.”
Ruiz turned toward him.
“Was he?”
Robert shook his head slowly.
“I left the dinner early.”
“I assumed he stayed.”
I felt something inside me collapse.
Margaret had given Nathan an alibi.
Nathan had been on the road with my father.
And the camera disappeared into Nathan’s safe-deposit box after the crash.
Ruiz told me the footage did not prove Nathan caused the accident.
I knew that.
But it proved five years of lies.
Then the forensic technician entered with another discovery.
The memory card contained deleted files.
Most were unrecoverable.
One partial audio fragment had survived.
It was recorded after the visible video ended.
Ruiz played it.
There was wind.
Rain.
My father’s voice.
Then Nathan shouting.
I could not understand the first words.
The technician amplified the audio.
Nathan’s voice became clearer.
“You should have stayed out of my marriage.”
My father answered.
“I’m trying to save her from you.”
A car door slammed.
Then Dad said something I had never heard before.
“Emily already owns the proof.”
The audio ended.
I stared at the screen.
“What proof?”
Nobody knew.
But my father believed he had given it to me before he died.
May you like
And I had no idea what it was.
