Chapter 10 - THE MAN BEHIND THE FAMILY
Grant was arrested in the parking lot.
Victor tried to leave.
He didn’t get far.
By midnight, Victor’s attorney was negotiating.
He had one thing Grant did not.
Fear.
Victor confessed to damaging Laura’s brake line.
He insisted Grant had ordered him to “make the car unsafe.”
Not necessarily to kill her.
Ortiz asked the obvious question.
“What did you think would happen?”
Victor stared at the table.
“I didn’t think.”
A coward’s favorite defense.
Then he gave them Thomas.
“Grant didn’t pay me.”
“Who did?”
“Voss.”
Thomas transferred $80,000 through an intermediary two days after Laura died.
The entire case shifted.
Thomas wasn’t hiding Grant’s crimes.
He was controlling them.
Grant was his blunt instrument.
Diane was his access.
Victor was his mechanic.
Laura and my father were the only people who had discovered the entire structure.
Both died.
By morning, prosecutors issued a federal warrant for Thomas Voss.
But he had disappeared.
His passport showed no departure.
His private plane remained in its hangar.
His credit cards were silent.
Ortiz believed he was still nearby.
I believed something worse.
Thomas knew about Emma’s trust hearing.
And he had forty-eight hours to save whatever remained of the scheme.
At 6:14 that evening, I received a message from an unknown number.
Your wife left one thing out.
Then a photograph.
Laura.
Alive.
Taken two days before her death.
Standing beside Thomas Voss.
The second message arrived immediately.
She came to me first.
A third:
Ask yourself why.
I showed Ortiz.
Her expression tightened.
“He wants you doubting Laura.”
“Maybe I should.”
“Why?”
“Because she hid everything from me.”
“She was building a case against people inside your family.”
“She met with Thomas.”
“Maybe she thought he was trustworthy.”
I stared at the photograph.
Thomas had spent decades convincing all of us he was trustworthy.
That was his real talent.
Not law.
Not finance.
Trust.
Then a fourth message arrived.
An address.
Abandoned courthouse annex downtown.
Midnight. Come alone if you want the truth about Laura.
Ortiz read it.
“You’re not going alone.”
“He’ll know.”
“Good.”
“He may run.”
“Better than you dying.”
I looked at her.
“You really don’t soften things.”
“No.”
At midnight I walked into the courthouse annex wearing a wire.
Thomas appeared from the shadows.
No suit this time.
Dark jacket.
Gray hair uncombed.
For the first time in my life, he looked old.
“You brought police.”
“Yes.”
He smiled.
“Laura would have done the same.”
“You killed my father.”
“No.”
“You watched him die.”
“Yes.”
The admission stunned me.
“Why?”
“Because Robert was going to destroy everything.”
“Everything you stole.”
“Everything he built.”
“You forged his signatures.”
“I kept the company alive.”
“You stole millions.”
“So did Grant.”
“You paid Victor.”
Thomas’s expression changed.
Barely.
Enough.
“You have no proof.”
“We have Victor.”
That landed harder.
Thomas looked toward the doorway.
Then laughed quietly.
“Victor always was weak.”
“Did you order Laura killed?”
“No.”
“Did you order her car sabotaged?”
“I told Grant to frighten her.”
“That sentence seems popular in this family.”
Thomas stepped closer.
“Laura was going to leave you.”
I said nothing.
“She met with me because she wanted protection.”
“From whom?”
“Your mother.”
“Why?”
“Because Diane had threatened Emma.”
My blood turned cold.
Thomas smiled sadly.
“You see, Daniel?”
“See what?”
May you like
“You still don’t know the worst thing your mother did.”
Then the lights went out.
