Chapter 7 - UNIT NINETEEN
My father died in a single-car crash four months before Sophie was born.
That was the official story.
Wet road.
Bad turn.
A man who had stayed too late at dinner.
My mother chose the casket before I reached the hospital.
I had mistaken efficiency for strength.
At the storage facility, Ruiz arranged access with the manager while Marcus stood beside me beneath a humming fluorescent light.
“Do you want to tell me what we’re looking for?” he asked.
“No.”
“Fair enough.”
Unit nineteen contained three boxes, a folding chair, and an old blue suitcase.
Lena had rented it while she was pregnant.
Before the birth.
Before the disappearance.
Before I understood there had been a war inside my house.
Ruiz photographed everything before anything moved.
The first box held foundation invoices.
Payments to residential facilities.
Lists of patients.
Repeated account numbers beneath different company names.
The second held copies of correspondence between my father and an outside accountant.
The third held a small recorder and a handwritten note.
ROMAN — LISTEN TO ALL OF IT.
I knew my father’s handwriting immediately.
Ruiz handled the recorder.
When his voice came through the speaker, I had to sit down.
“Lena, if I’m wrong, I’ll apologize to Evelyn myself.”
A pause.
“But the transfers aren’t mistakes.”
Lena’s younger voice answered.
“Have you told Roman?”
“Not yet.”
“Why?”
“Because he’ll ask his mother before he asks for proof.”
I stared at the concrete floor.
Even dead, my father knew where to put the knife.
The recording continued.
He had found money routed through the family foundation into companies controlled by Evelyn and Adrian.
He planned to remove them from the board.
He had asked Lena to keep copies because she was the only person in the family office who had questioned the numbers.
“Tomorrow morning,” he said. “I’m meeting the accountant. Then I tell Roman.”
The recording ended.
For a moment, nobody moved.
Then Ruiz opened a folder beneath the recorder.
Vehicle inspection photographs.
An unsigned draft report.
A mechanic’s name.
Beside it, my father had written:
BRAKE ISSUE AGAIN. ASK DANIEL.
“Again,” I said.
Ruiz didn’t answer.
She was reading a bank transfer dated two days after the crash.
A large payment from a foundation vendor to the mechanic listed on the page.
It wasn’t proof of murder.
I knew that.
It was enough to make every memory of my father’s funeral feel contaminated.
My phone buzzed.
A message from Lena.
Someone just tried to collect Sophie from the ward.
I called immediately.
Lena answered, breathless.
“She had a badge. She knew Sophie’s full name.”
“Where is Sophie?”
“With me.”
May you like
A beat.
“Roman, she said you sent her.”
