Chapter 18 - REBECCA
Rebecca Blackwood had died twenty months earlier.
Victor had spent twenty months believing grief was random.
Now detectives reopened everything.
The wrecked vehicle had been destroyed after the insurance case closed, but traffic footage still existed in an archived municipal server.
The truck driver who crossed the center line had disappeared after serving six months for negligent homicide.
Nathan’s financial records showed a payment to the driver’s brother two weeks after the crash.
Victor sat in the conference room staring at the transfer.
He did not cry.
He looked beyond crying.
Lily sat beside him without speaking.
Finally Victor said, “I thought I failed her because I was working too much.”
“You didn’t kill her.”
“I didn’t listen when she told me Nathan was dangerous.”
That part was true.
Rebecca had warned him about unexplained invoices and shell vendors. Victor had promised to review them after a merger closed.
The merger took six weeks.
Rebecca died in week two.
Detective Ellis entered.
“We found the truck driver.”
Victor looked up.
“Where?”
“Mexico. He crossed back into Texas yesterday using his real passport.”
“Why now?”
“Because someone paid him to return.”
Nathan.
Police arrested the driver at a motel outside El Paso.
By midnight, he was talking.
Nathan had paid him to force Rebecca’s car off the road.
He claimed he never meant to kill her.
Nobody believed that mattered.
Then Detective Ellis received another call.
She listened, thanked the caller, and looked at Victor.
“We searched Nathan’s office.”
“What did you find?”
“A folder labeled Ethan.”
Victor’s face hardened.
Inside the folder was a photograph of his son taken through the nursery window.
May you like
On the back, someone had written a date.
The wedding day.
