Chapter 13 - FORTY-EIGHT HOURS
Ortiz moved Emma and me to a protected location.
Natalie joined us.
For two days, the world narrowed to locked doors, federal agents, and unanswered questions.
Thomas had crossed a line.
He wasn’t hiding anymore.
He was forcing us to react.
The FBI traced one of his burner phones.
Signal pinged near Hollow Creek Road.
Where Laura died.
We went there under heavy protection.
I had avoided the road for three years.
The guardrail had been replaced.
Flowers occasionally appeared beside a small wooden cross.
I had never put it there.
Someone else had.
Near the tree line, Ortiz found a weatherproof box buried beneath stones.
Inside were documents.
Thomas wanted us to find them.
One was a copy of Laura’s life-insurance policy.
Beneficiary:
Me.
Five million dollars.
Another was a note suggesting I had asked Laura to increase coverage three months before her death.
My signature appeared at the bottom.
Forged.
Thomas was building another story.
This time I was the killer.
Within hours, anonymous copies reached a reporter.
Headlines appeared online.
HUSBAND BENEFITED FROM WIFE’S DEATH.
It didn’t matter that the documents were questionable.
Suspicion moved faster than truth.
Then Grant requested a meeting with prosecutors.
He wanted a deal.
He admitted the financial fraud.
Admitted conspiring to frighten Laura.
Admitted Victor sabotaged the brakes.
But he claimed Thomas had ordered everything.
In exchange for testimony, Grant wanted reduced charges.
Ortiz asked him one question.
“Who killed Robert?”
Grant smiled.
“My sister-in-law gave him the pill.”
“Diane?”
“Yes.”
“Who gave Diane the pill?”
Grant’s smile vanished.
“Thomas.”
Finally.
A direct link.
But Grant had no recording.
No document.
Only testimony from a man facing decades in prison.
Then another deadline appeared.
Thomas had transferred records connected to the fraudulent loans into a cloud vault.
Federal cyber investigators believed the vault was scheduled to purge in forty-eight hours.
If deleted, prosecutors could lose the cleanest evidence of his financial network.
The password clue?
A phrase from my father’s notebook:
THE FIRST LIE.
I knew exactly where to look.
My childhood home.
May you like
The house where Diane still lived.
The place where this family learned to lie.
