“Your father found your name in their records.”
Jason’s eyes widened.
“My name?”
“They had opened accounts using your information.”
Jason looked stunned.
“Why would they do that?”
“Because if the money disappeared, they needed someone else to blame.”
I suddenly understood why my husband had been so worried during the final months of his life.
The sleepless nights.
The whispered phone calls.
The sudden insistence that Jason change his passwords.
The strange argument we’d had the week before he died.
I’d thought he was simply stressed.
He had been terrified.
Richard continued.
“Your father confronted the people responsible. They told him to stay quiet.”
“And he didn’t,” Jason said.
“No.”
“What happened that night?”
Richard looked at me.
“I was supposed to meet your father and give him evidence.”
“What evidence?”
“Bank records. Names. Everything.”
“But you never gave it to him.”
“I tried.”
Richard’s voice trembled.
“I was driving to meet him when I was attacked.”
He paused.
“When I woke up, the police were already there.”
I stared at him.
“And my husband?”
Richard’s eyes filled with tears.
“He was dead.”
The room became painfully quiet.
“What happened to the evidence?”
Richard looked at Jason.
“Your father had hidden it.”
“Where?”
Richard shook his head.
“I didn’t know.”
Jason suddenly stood.
“Wait.”
He walked toward a cabinet in the hallway.
“My dad had an old toolbox.”
He opened a drawer and began searching.
I watched him pull out old keys, receipts, screws and pieces of hardware.
Then he stopped.
“Mom.”
He was holding a small brass key.
I recognized it immediately.
It had belonged to my husband.
Jason looked at Richard.
“Do you recognize this?”
Richard’s expression changed.
“Yes.”
“What does it open?”
Richard stared at the key.
“A storage locker.”
My heart began beating faster.
We drove there together.
The storage facility was nearly empty.
The sun had already disappeared, and the rows of metal doors looked strangely cold beneath the security lights.
Jason found the locker.
The key turned.
The door rolled upward.
Inside was a single cardboard box.
Nothing else.
Jason opened it.
There were bank statements.
Photographs.
Names.
Dates.
And at the very bottom was a small recorder.
Jason pressed the button.
At first, there was only static.
Then my husband’s voice filled the dark storage unit.
“Linda, if you’re hearing this, something happened to me.”
I covered my mouth.
His voice sounded exactly as I remembered.
Older.
Tired.
But still my husband.
“I need you to know that I loved you.”
Tears ran down my face.
“I never wanted to frighten you. I thought I could fix this before you ever had to know.”
There was a pause.
Then he said something that none of us expected.
“Richard is not the man you should be afraid of.”
I looked at Richard.
He lowered his head.
My husband’s voice continued.
“The person you should be afraid of is someone you already know.”
The recording stopped.
Jason stared at me.
“Who?”
I didn’t answer.
Because suddenly, I remembered something.
A name.
A name my husband had mentioned only once.
Someone who had attended the funeral.
Someone who had hugged me and told me how sorry he was.
Someone who had known exactly how much money my husband had been investigating.
