Chapter 7 - David's Last Lie
I called 911.
Not Dominic.
Not his associates.
Police.
I gave David's address and said I believed someone had entered the penthouse.
Then we drove back to Chicago.
Nobody spoke much.
At sunrise, Rachel called.
David was alive.
Police had found the penthouse empty.
No Wexler.
No sign of forced entry beyond the earlier damage.
David claimed he'd panicked.
Maybe he had.
Maybe he'd lied.
By then, the difference barely surprised me.
I didn't go to him.
I went to federal investigators with Rachel.
Thomas came too.
So did Evelyn.
By afternoon, three years of secrets were sitting on a conference table.
The investigation widened.
Nobody promised me justice.
Rachel warned me repeatedly that evidence was not the same as a conviction.
Some records were strong.
Some were circumstantial.
Some would need authentication.
That was reality.
I preferred reality now.
Even when it disappointed me.
Especially then.
David was questioned.
Released.
His passport was flagged while investigators reviewed potential charges.
Martin Wexler disappeared.
Peter Lawson, the mechanic, was located in Indiana.
And then something unexpected happened.
He talked.
Lawson admitted receiving money to create a mechanical vulnerability in Dad's braking system.
He insisted he had been told the car would be disabled before anyone drove it.
The instruction had come through Wexler.
“Did David order it?” I asked Rachel.
“We don't know yet.”
That answer again.
We don't know.
I was learning to survive those words.
Two days later, David asked to speak with me.
Rachel recommended against meeting privately.
So we met in her office.
Security nearby.
Recorder running.
David walked in wearing a navy suit.
Perfect hair.
Fresh shave.
For half a second, I saw the man from our wedding photographs.
Then I remembered the kitchen floor.
He sat across from me.
“You look better.”
I said nothing.
“I've been worried.”
Still nothing.
Finally, his mask slipped.
“You're really doing this?”
“Doing what?”
“Destroying everything.”
I almost laughed.
“You think I did that?”
“We could have fixed our marriage.”
“No.”
“You don't mean that.”
“Yes, I do.”
His eyes hardened.
There he was.
“I loved you.”
“No. You loved controlling me.”
“That's what Rossi told you?”
“That's what you taught me.”
He looked toward the glass wall.
“Dominic wants something.”
“Everyone wants something.”
“What does he want from you?”
“Nothing.”
“Men like him don't do favors.”
“Neither did you.”
He leaned closer.
“Your father hated me from the beginning.”
“My father saw you before I did.”
“I made one mistake.”
“One?”
“I lost my temper.”
“For three years?”
His jaw flexed.
“I was under pressure.”
“And I was available.”
He looked away.
That tiny movement told me more than any apology could.
I put a photograph on the table.
The prepaid phone purchase.
“Why did you call Dad?”
“I told you.”
“No. You told me you wanted to stop Wexler.”
“I did.”
“Then tell me everything.”
David rubbed his forehead.
“I told Wexler Arthur was going federal. I wanted him scared.”
“How?”
“I don't know.”
“You didn't ask?”
“No.”
“Because you didn't care.”
He closed his eyes.
“I was angry.”
“Then Dad crashed.”
“Yes.”
“You followed him.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because Wexler called me and said something had gone wrong.”
My stomach tightened.
“What exactly?”
“He said, ‘Your problem won't make the meeting.’”
Even Rachel stopped writing.
“And you understood?”
“Not immediately.”
“David.”
“Yes.”
The word was barely audible.
“You knew.”
“I suspected.”
“So you followed Dad.”
“Yes.”
“Where was he?”
“Off the road.”
“Alive?”
David began crying again.
“Yes.”
I gripped the chair.
“Tell me what happened.”
“He was trapped. I couldn't open the driver's door.”
“Did you call 911?”
“Not immediately.”
The room went silent.
“How long?”
“I don't know.”
“How long?”
“Maybe four minutes.”
Four minutes.
An entire lifetime fit inside four minutes.
“Why?”
“He had a bag.”
“What bag?”
“Documents.”
My stomach turned.
“You took them.”
“He told me not to.”
“You took them.”
“Yes.”
“What did Dad say?”
David's face collapsed.
“He said, ‘Don't do this to Claire.’”
I couldn't feel my hands.
“Then?”
“I took the bag.”
“And left him?”
“No. I called 911 anonymously from the prepaid phone.”
“Then you left.”
“Yes.”
I stood.
Rachel touched my arm.
Not restraining.
Just reminding me where I was.
I looked down at the man who had spent years telling me my memories were wrong.
“Did you ever love me?”
He stared at the table.
“I thought I did.”
That was perhaps the first honest thing he'd said.
I sat again.
“What happened to the bag?”
“I gave it to Wexler.”
“Why?”
“He said he'd destroy it.”
“Did he?”
“No.”
“How do you know?”
“Because he used it to blackmail me afterward.”
There it was.
The missing piece.
David hadn't controlled Wexler.
Wexler controlled David.
It didn't absolve him.
It explained the fear.
“What was in the bag?”
“Records. Names. Accounts.”
“The third copy?”
“No. I didn't know Thomas existed.”
“What else?”
David hesitated.
“Something Arthur recorded at the garage.”
Dominic's uncle.
“What?”
“I never heard it.”
“Where is it?”
“Wexler has it.”
Rachel leaned forward.
“How do you know?”
“He sent me ten seconds of it last year.”
“Why?”
“To remind me what he had.”
“What was on those ten seconds?”
David looked at me.
“Your father naming the person he believed was running the entire operation.”
My heart accelerated.
“Who?”
“I couldn't hear the name.”
“You're lying.”
“I swear.”
“Where is the clip?”
“On my old laptop.”
“Where?”
David swallowed.
“In the penthouse.”
Police had searched the penthouse.
They hadn't found it.
“Where exactly?”
“There's a safe behind the wine cabinet.”
Of course there was another safe.
Rachel contacted investigators.
A warrant followed.
That evening, they found the laptop.
Encrypted.
David provided the password as part of discussions with his attorney.
The clip was recovered.
Ten seconds.
Dad's voice.
Wexler's voice.
Then:
“The person funding you is—”
Static.
A name.
Distorted.
Then Dad:
“I have the transfers.”
The clip ended.
Audio specialists began working on it.
Hours passed.
At 1:17 a.m., Rachel called.
“They recovered part of the name.”
I sat upright.
“What is it?”
“Not enough yet.”
“Rachel.”
“They believe the first syllable is ‘Har—’”
Har.
Harold?
My father's attorney.
The man who died eight months after Dad.
Harold Vance.
I remembered something from the storage unit.
Dad's second authorization key had belonged to his attorney.
Harold.
“What if Harold didn't die naturally?”
Rachel went quiet.
“We don't know that.”
“Where are his records?”
“His old firm may have them.”
By eight the next morning, we were at Vance & Cole.
Harold's former partner brought us archive boxes.
One contained Dad's estate file.
Inside was a sealed envelope never delivered to me.
Across the front:
TO CLAIRE PENDLETON — PERSONAL.
The attorney looked confused.
“This should have been sent three years ago.”
“Why wasn't it?”
He checked the file.
Then his expression changed.
“Someone signed it out.”
“Who?”
He turned the log toward me.
The signature was clear.
David Mercer.
My husband.
But beneath David's signature was another authorization.
One name.
Martin Wexler.
And beside it was a handwritten note:
Deliver only after Claire learns what happened at the crash.
I opened the envelope.
Inside was a key card.
An address.
And a message from my father:
The original evidence is here.
I looked at Rachel.
The address belonged to a private office building downtown.
We arrived forty minutes later.
Suite 904.
The door was unlocked.
I pushed it open.
A computer screen glowed in the dark room.
Someone was sitting in front of it.
The chair slowly turned.
May you like
And Martin Wexler said:
“I've been waiting for Arthur's daughter.”
