Chapter 15 - The Mechanic
Nathan's face went gray.
Alexander saw it.
So did every officer in the room.
"You?" Alexander whispered.
Nathan shook his head. "No."
Martin laughed. "Then tell him."
Nathan looked at Ethan, then away.
"I hired someone to disable Julia's car."
Alexander lunged before he could stop himself.
Two officers grabbed him.
"You killed her!"
"No! I was trying to stop her from driving to Martin's meeting. I told the mechanic to cut the ignition, not the brakes."
"And you trusted him?"
"I trusted the wrong man."
Brooks demanded a name.
Nathan gave it.
Caleb Dunn.
Former Blackwood fleet mechanic.
Missing since the week Julia died.
Martin stopped smiling.
That told them something.
"He wasn't yours?" Brooks asked Martin.
Martin said nothing.
Nathan continued. "Caleb called me after the crash. He said someone changed the job. Paid him ten times what I did."
"Who?"
"He wouldn't say."
Maria remembered the crash recording.
The woman's voice.
Not Vanessa.
A woman had been part of it.
Back at the estate, police searched old employee files.
Caleb's emergency contact was a woman named Diane Mercer.
Mrs. Bell recognized the photograph.
"She worked here."
Alexander stared. "Doing what?"
"Your father's private secretary."
Elena found another connection.
Diane Mercer had later changed her name.
To Diane Price.
Owen stood up so fast his chair fell backward.
"My mother?"
The room went silent.
Owen's mother had supposedly died of a stroke six years earlier.
Again: no public funeral. Closed casket.
Owen backed away from the table.
"No."
Brooks looked at him carefully. "When did you last see her alive?"
"The night before Julia's crash."
Maria felt cold.
Owen's phone buzzed.
A text from an unknown number.
COME HOME, SON.
May you like
Below it was a photograph of Owen's childhood house.
Lights on inside.
