Chapter 3 - A SON WITH AN ANSWER
I called David before Helen could talk me out of it.
He answered immediately.
"Mom, are you all right?"
"Why did your father transfer you eighty thousand dollars?"
Silence.
I could hear traffic behind him.
"Who showed you that?"
"Your father left records. I want the truth, David."
He asked to come over.
I told him Helen was present.
"Good," he said.
"She ought to hear this too."
He arrived with a document folder and a photograph from the year Thomas began his investigation.
David explained that the money had paid for an independent forensic audit.
The check had passed through his business account because Thomas feared Greg was monitoring family correspondence.
"I gave Dad every receipt," David said.
Helen compared the amounts.
They matched, apart from a small balance David had returned.
I felt relief flood through me, followed by shame for having doubted him.
David did not seem offended.
"Mom, doubt everyone until the facts check out. That's what Dad taught me."
Then he spread several old photographs across the table.
In one, Greg shook hands with a man beside a white delivery van.
"This is Nolan Voss," David said.
"He supervised inventory at Dad's supplier."
Thomas's letter mentioned Nolan as a potential witness.
David had tried to find him after the funeral, but the man had disappeared.
"I got a message from him this morning," David continued.
He showed me a screenshot.
The text contained four words: TELL YOUR MOTHER RUN.
I demanded to know who had sent it.
David said the number was disconnected by the time he called.
Helen leaned forward.
"We need to preserve the original message."
Just then my doorbell rang.
The camera showed nobody on the porch.
Instead, a folded photograph lay beneath the doormat.
It depicted Thomas entering a hospital, alive, eight months after the date on his death certificate.
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On the back someone had written, ASK WHERE HE REALLY DIED.
