Chapter 11 - THE MORNING EMILY DIED
In the photograph, Vanessa wore a navy coat and stood beside the rear wheel of Emily’s Subaru. The gas station sign behind them showed a location six miles from our house. The timestamp read 7:18 a.m.
Emily’s crash happened at 8:06.
“How did you get this?” I asked.
“Emily requested the station footage because someone had been following her. The owner copied a still before the recordings were erased. She sent it to me that morning.”
Rios took the photograph and requested the original file. “A picture isn't proof of sabotage,” she said. “I need the service records and the crash evidence.”
Ethan nodded. “I know.”
The accident report said Emily hit black ice. No one had checked the brake line in detail. The vehicle was later sold for salvage after an insurer declared it a total loss.
I had signed the papers. I had been too numb to look at what I was signing. Again.
Rios traced the wreck to a yard in Mill Creek. The shell of Emily’s car was still there, stacked between two battered pickup trucks. I stayed outside while a forensic mechanic examined the surviving components.
At home, I made Lily spaghetti and burned the garlic bread. She laughed for the first time in days.
“Mommy burned it once too,” she said.
“She told you?”
“She said good people mess up dinner. Bad people make you scared to say you don't like it.”
I set the blackened bread down. Emily had been teaching our daughter courage long before I realized she would need it.
Just after nine, Rios called.
“The mechanic found evidence of tool marks around the rear brake assembly,” she said. “It warrants a full investigation, not a conclusion yet.”
Then she added, “The insurance file was approved by an adjuster named Leonard Cole.”
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I knew the last name before she said it.
Leonard was Vanessa’s father.
