Chapter 13 - DAD'S LAST CUSTOMER
The vandalism brought two of Dad's longtime employees back to the garage.
Arthur Bell had worked beside him for thirty-six years.
His apprentice, Naomi Chen, had recently returned from technical school.
They stared at the damaged workbench as though someone had defaced a gravestone.
Arthur offered to help repair the shop.
Naomi offered to preserve security footage and inventory the missing tools.
For the first time, the business felt like more than the battlefield Ethan had made it.
It felt like a community of people who had loved Dad.
Arthur told me Dad's last customer had brought in a vintage blue sedan with a persistent electrical fault.
"He wouldn't charge her full price," Arthur said.
"Said she'd already paid enough."
The customer's name was Miriam Cole.
She had been a private-duty nurse for a home-care agency before losing her job.
Dad had helped her after a dispute over forged patient records.
When Nora found Miriam, she agreed to talk with Mercer.
Miriam said she had seen suspicious entries on a medical portal associated with Dad's care.
She had tried to alert the clinic, but her concerns were initially dismissed as an internal records mix-up.
"George told me his son-in-law kept asking whether the old prescriptions could be restarted," Miriam said.
"He was afraid someone was changing his instructions."
"Was Ethan alone?" Mercer asked.
"No," she answered.
"A woman named Vivian was helping him."
Vivian Hart was a licensed practical nurse who had worked occasional shifts for Dad's home-care provider.
She had resigned soon after his final hospitalization.
Investigators began checking the records and her whereabouts.
Miriam handed me a little folded note.
Dad had written it on the back of a service invoice.
"If I don't get the chance to explain, tell Lydia I'm proud of the woman she became."
I cried in the office with Arthur standing quietly beside me.
Then Miriam offered one more detail.
She had heard Vivian tell someone on the phone that the "first paperwork" was finished.
May you like
When asked about the second, Vivian replied, "That depends on the daughter."
