Chapter 5 - EMMA’S LAST EMAIL
I didn’t sleep.
At three in the morning, Noah woke crying. I sat in the rocking chair with him against my chest and kept thinking about Emma.
Her laugh.
Her stubbornness.
The way she had said, “Your mother hates me because she can’t own me.”
I used to tell her Margaret was difficult, not dangerous.
That lie tasted rotten now.
At sunrise, I opened Emma’s old laptop.
I had never touched it after the funeral.
Her password was Noah’s birthday.
The inbox looked normal until I searched “Graybridge.”
One result appeared in Drafts.
It had never been sent.
Daniel,
If you’re reading this, I finally stopped waiting for you to believe me.
The paternity test was changed. I have proof Leonard ordered the lab to use a replacement sample. Margaret knows. I think your father found out before he died.
Do not tell them you know until you check Graybridge and the Continuity Clause.
And if anything happens to me, ask Grace what she saw at the garage.
My hands went cold.
I called Grace downstairs.
She read the message twice.
Then she sat down.
“What did you see at the garage?” I asked.
Her lips trembled. “The night before Mrs. Emma’s crash, I saw a man near her SUV.”
“What man?”
“I couldn’t see his face. He wore a Reeves maintenance jacket.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I told Margaret. She said the mechanic had been called because Emma complained about the brakes.”
“Emma never told me that.”
Grace looked sick.
“There’s more.”
She reached into her apron pocket and pulled out a tiny flash drive.
“I found this under the garage workbench after the funeral. I was afraid to open it.”
I plugged it into Emma’s laptop.
One video file appeared.
The timestamp was the night before the crash.
The grainy garage camera showed Emma’s SUV.
A man walked into frame.
He looked directly at the camera before reaching up to cover it.
May you like
I knew him.
It was Leonard Shaw.
