Chapter 5 - MICHAEL
Michael answered on the third ring.
“Daniel.”
His voice sounded relaxed.
As if nothing had happened.
As if police weren’t standing in my office reading evidence that connected him to my dead wife.
“Where are you?”
“Home.”
“Stay there.”
A pause.
“What happened?”
“You already know.”
Silence.
Then he laughed softly.
“I genuinely don’t.”
I looked at Keller.
He nodded for me to continue.
“Rachel left files.”
Michael stopped breathing.
Only for a second.
But I heard it.
“What files?”
“You tell me.”
“Daniel, you sound insane.”
“Vanessa is in one of the photographs.”
Another pause.
“What photograph?”
“The one with you.”
Michael’s voice changed.
“Listen to me.”
“No.”
“You need to listen.”
“For three years, I listened.”
I stood.
“I listened when you said Rachel drove too fast.”
“I listened when you said grief was making me irrational.”
“I listened when you told me Vanessa was good for the kids.”
My voice broke.
“Ethan has bruises.”
Silence.
“What?”
“Lily was screaming when I came home.”
Michael swore.
“That wasn’t supposed to happen.”
The room froze.
Keller’s eyes snapped toward me.
I whispered.
“What wasn’t supposed to happen?”
Michael realized what he had said.
“Daniel.”
“What wasn’t supposed to happen?”
“Nothing.”
“You just said it.”
“I meant Vanessa losing control.”
“How would you know she was losing control?”
Michael hung up.
Keller immediately called another officer.
Michael’s house was twenty-eight minutes away.
By the time police arrived, he was gone.
His security cameras had been disabled.
His phone was off.
His car remained in the garage.
But another vehicle was missing.
A black Range Rover registered to Harbor Ridge.
The same model Rachel had written about in her notebook.
At 3:20 a.m., an alert went out.
At 4:05, the Range Rover was found at a private airfield.
Michael was not there.
A charter pilot told police a man matching his description had tried to hire a flight to Canada.
The pilot refused because the request involved no passenger manifest.
Michael left.
On foot.
At sunrise, Keller came back into the living room.
The kids were asleep beneath blankets.
He kept his voice low.
“We searched the Range Rover.”
“And?”
He handed me a clear evidence bag.
Inside was a silver necklace.
Rachel’s necklace.
The one she had been wearing the night she died.
The coroner had told me it was lost in the crash.
I stared at it.
My knees weakened.
“Where was this?”
“Under the driver’s seat.”
I looked at Keller.
“My brother’s car?”
He nodded.
Then his face hardened.
“There’s more.”
Investigators had sprayed the cargo area.
Old biological traces were found beneath the carpet.
Too degraded for an immediate answer.
But enough to test.
Keller looked directly at me.
May you like
“If that blood belongs to Rachel, your brother didn’t just know what happened.”
“He was there.”
