Chapter 10: David’s Last Phone Call
David’s accident happened on a rainy October night.
A truck crossed the center line.
His car left the highway.
The driver was never identified.
For years, I believed it was random.
A terrible moment with no meaning behind it.
Then I heard my father’s voice on the warehouse recording.
We use what happened to Evelyn’s husband.
Maya ordered the old case reopened immediately.
“What did David know about the company?” she asked.
“He handled cybersecurity contracts for Hartwell.”
“Did he ever mention financial concerns?”
I remembered our final week together.
David had been distracted.
He checked the locks twice every night.
He asked whether I trusted my family.
I thought he was worried about a contract dispute.
The night he died, he called me at 10:14.
I didn’t answer because Sophie had a fever.
He left a voicemail.
I had listened to it hundreds of times.
Mostly to hear his voice.
I played it for Maya.
“Evelyn, I found something in the Hartwell servers. It’s bigger than Preston. Don’t call your father. Don’t tell anyone until I get home.”
The message ended with the sound of a horn.
Then silence.
David had discovered the same scheme years before I did.
My father hadn’t merely known about the corruption.
He had protected it before.
A technician recovered another file.
It was a payment from a Hartwell shell company to a trucking business two days before David’s crash.
The trucking company dissolved the following week.
Maya looked at me.
“We need to find your father.”
My phone rang.
Unknown number.
I answered.
For three seconds, there was only static.
Then Sophie’s voice.
“Mommy?”
My knees weakened.
“Sophie. Are you okay?”
“I’m scared.”
“Where are you?”
“I don’t know. There’s water outside.”
A man took the phone.
My father.
“You should have left the company alone.”
“Let Sophie go.”
“Bring me Lauren and the original trust documents.”
“I don’t have them.”
“Then find them.”
“What trust documents?”
He gave a bitter laugh.
“Your grandmother’s real will.”
The line went dead.
I stared at Maya.
“My grandmother died six months ago. Her will left the company equally to Preston and me.”
“Your father says there’s another version.”
Lauren stepped closer.
“Preston once told me his grandmother hated Martin’s business decisions. He said she threatened to remove him from the trust.”
I thought of Sophie’s note.
Of the flowers she had worn.
Of something else she had said weeks earlier.
Grandma Ruth had given her a silver locket before she died.
She told Sophie never to let Preston touch it.
I called the hospital.
The nurse checked Sophie’s personal belongings.
The locket was not there.
Then I remembered the wedding.
Before the ceremony, Sophie had complained that the chain felt uncomfortable.
She placed the locket inside her flower basket.
The same basket my mother had stolen.
The same basket Amber had searched for the drive.
Amber had found the drive.
May you like
But perhaps she had found something else too.
A tiny key hidden inside the locket.
