Chapter 8 - The Things They Buried
Victor returned without the box.
He brought a story instead.
“Daniel Whitfield stole from Brennan. When he was caught, his heart gave out. The daughter panicked.”
Clara stood beside the library door.
“My father told me to run.”
“Grief changes memories.”
“You were there.”
“I went to help.”
Raphael watched his uncle.
“Where are the receipts?”
“Meaningless paperwork.”
“Then bring them.”
Victor’s expression hardened.
“You’ve known this woman ten minutes.”
“Answer the question.”
“I destroyed them.”
Silence filled the room.
Victor seemed to realize what he had admitted.
“They were upsetting her.”
Clara laughed.
A short, broken sound.
“You broke his badge to make me feel better?”
Victor looked at her with naked dislike.
Raphael saw it.
“Leave my house.”
“Be very careful.”
“I am.”
After Victor left, Raphael locked the door.
Clara stiffened.
He immediately unlocked it again.
“Sorry.”
She nodded once.
It mattered that he noticed.
Milo returned from Brennan’s old dispatch building that afternoon with an address.
An employee from Daniel’s time still lived in Quincy.
Ruth Mercer.
Retired payroll clerk.
When Clara called, Ruth cried before Clara finished saying her name.
“I thought you were dead.”
“I’ve been in Chelsea.”
“Your father said if anything happened, I should keep the second set.”
Clara stopped breathing.
“What second set?”
Ruth met them in her kitchen.
She placed a thick envelope on the table.
“Danny didn’t trust office storage.”
Inside were copies of payment records and shipping receipts.
One date made Raphael lean forward.
Late October.
Fifteen years earlier.
The night his father died.
A truck had been reassigned.
A driver paid through a maintenance account.
A second payment followed the funeral.
The authorization initials were V.D.
Victor Duca.
“These don’t prove murder,” Milo said carefully.
“No,” Raphael answered.
But his voice sounded far away.
Ruth touched another document.
“Your father found those old transfers while tracing the insurance money. That’s why they came after him.”
Clara looked at Raphael.
For the first time, their losses sat on the same table.
His father.
Hers.
Two men who had asked where the money went.
Back in the car, Raphael’s phone lit up.
A message from an unknown number.
A photograph of Ruth’s front door.
May you like
Under it:
YOU SHOULD HAVE LEFT HER ALONE.
