Chapter 10 - THE MIDPOINT
Vincent came to the police station voluntarily.
Mom asked the question herself.
“Why did Mason know about Rory?”
Vincent stared at her.
“I didn’t know he did.”
“My husband thought he did.”
Vincent looked toward Detective Monroe.
“Show me the note.”
She did.
Vincent read it twice.
Then he sat down.
For the first time since I met him, he looked older.
“Five years ago, Mason told me Daniel Carter was stealing company information.”
Mom’s face hardened.
“And you believed him.”
“Yes.”
“What did you do?”
“I told Mason to find out why.”
Mom stood.
“You sent him after my husband.”
Vincent didn’t defend himself.
“Yes.”
The word landed harder than an excuse.
Mom’s eyes filled with rage.
“And then Daniel died.”
“I know.”
“You knew?”
“I knew about the accident.”
“You never came to me.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because Mason told me Daniel had been selling information to a competitor.”
Mom laughed bitterly.
“And you believed that too.”
Vincent looked down.
“Yes.”
Mom slapped him.
Every officer in the room froze.
Vincent’s guards stepped forward.
He lifted one hand.
They stopped.
Mom was shaking.
“You don’t get to stand in my restaurant and pretend you’re the man who fixes everything.”
Vincent looked back at her.
“You’re right.”
That answer made her angrier.
“My daughter thought you were some kind of hero.”
“I’m not.”
I looked at him.
He looked at me.
“I should have asked more questions.”
Mom’s voice broke.
“My husband might be alive if you had.”
Vincent nodded once.
“I know.”
Detective Monroe interrupted.
“There’s more.”
She opened a banking report.
Five years earlier, two days before Daniel’s accident, Mason withdrew $40,000 in cash.
The next morning, David deposited $18,000 into a private account.
Twenty-two thousand remained unaccounted for.
Then came another discovery.
Daniel’s accident had been investigated as a single-car crash.
But photographs from the scene showed damage to the rear bumper.
A second vehicle had struck him.
That detail had never appeared in the final report.
Mom stopped breathing.
Detective Monroe continued.
“The officer who wrote the final report retired three years ago.”
“His mortgage was paid off two weeks after Daniel died.”
Vincent closed his eyes.
Mason.
David.
A compromised report.
A dead bookkeeper.
And five years of silence.
Angela entered the interview room carrying another file.
“The safe-deposit box was opened.”
Mom looked up.
“What was inside?”
Angela placed a photograph on the table.
It showed David and Mason sitting inside a black SUV.
The picture had been taken the night Daniel died.
Then she placed down a second photograph.
The SUV was parked behind Daniel’s car.
Mom began to cry.
But Angela wasn’t finished.
“There’s something written on the back.”
She turned it over.
One sentence.
THE MAN TAKING THIS PICTURE IS THE ONLY WITNESS.
Below it was a name.
May you like
SAMUEL CROWE.
David Sterling’s former attorney.
