Chapter 12 - The Last Recording
My father's last recording began inside a car.
Rain tapped against glass.
He sounded tired.
"Victor wants to meet at the old Ridgeway project. He says he'll return the missing audit pages. I don't trust him."
A pause.
"If anything happens, look at the insurance file. Diane knows more than Charles thinks."
Then the recording changed.
A man's voice entered.
Victor Sloan.
"Turn that thing off, David."
"Give me the originals."
"You don't understand what exposure does to a family business."
"I understand theft."
The sound became muffled. A car door opened. Wind rushed across the microphone.
Then Diane's voice.
Clear enough that nobody in the station office could pretend it was someone else.
"David, please. Take the settlement."
I stopped breathing.
She had been there.
My mother-in-law had been with my father hours before he died.
Dad said, "I won't let you use Emily to clean up your mess."
Victor cursed.
There was a scuffle.
Then the audio cut out.
Charles sat down hard.
"She told me she was home that night."
Monica looked at him. "Did police ever know Diane was at the meeting?"
"No."
I stared at the recorder.
For nine years, Diane had eaten Christmas dinner with me. She had hugged me at my wedding. She had watched me cry on the anniversary of Dad's death.
And she had never once told me she saw him alive that night.
My phone rang.
Unknown number.
I answered.
Diane's voice came through calm and cold.
"You found the locker."
I looked around the station.
"How do you know?"
"Because your father was predictable. So are you."
"Were you there when he died?"
Silence.
Then she said, "Come to the storage facility alone if you want the truth."
"Why would I trust you?"
"You shouldn't."
A faint metallic sound came through the phone.
May you like
"But if you want the original trust papers before Ryan destroys them, you have twenty minutes."
The line went dead.
