Chapter 3 - LAURA'S VOICE
The recording lasted forty-three seconds.
That was all.
Forty-three seconds after three years of silence.
Ortiz called me to the station the next morning.
She placed headphones on the table.
“You should hear this before we discuss it.”
My hands shook when I put them on.
Static.
A car door shutting.
Laura breathing.
Then—
her voice.
“Daniel, if you’re hearing this, I didn’t get the chance to tell you myself.”
I closed my eyes.
Three years vanished.
She was alive again.
Right beside me.
“I found transfers from Mercer Development into three shell companies. Grant authorized two. Someone used your father’s signature for the third.”
Paper rustled.
“I thought it was only money.”
A pause.
“I was wrong.”
My heart began pounding.
Laura continued.
“Your father found out before he died.”
I opened my eyes.
Ortiz was watching me.
“He left proof at the lake house. Diane knows I found it.”
Another pause.
Laura sounded frightened now.
Not dramatic.
Not hysterical.
Controlled fear.
The kind Laura used to have when she knew Emma was sick but didn’t want our daughter to see her panic.
“If anything happens to me, don’t trust Thomas Voss.”
Then came the final sentence.
The sentence that destroyed the last three years of my life.
“And Daniel—your father did not die of natural causes.”
The recording ended.
I took off the headphones.
For a long time, nobody spoke.
“My father had a heart attack.”
Ortiz remained still.
“That’s what the death certificate says.”
“He was sixty-three.”
“Yes.”
“He had cardiac disease.”
“Yes.”
I looked at her.
“You already checked.”
“We started checking after your daughter’s statement.”
My voice sounded distant.
“What did you find?”
“Your father’s body was cremated.”
“I know.”
“Who arranged that?”
“My mother.”
Ortiz slid a document across the table.
“Two weeks before Robert Mercer died, he changed his medical power of attorney.”
I stared at the signature.
It named Diane.
“Why does that matter?”
“Maybe it doesn’t.”
I looked up.
“You don’t believe that.”
“No.”
She slid another paper toward me.
“This is from Mercer Development’s corporate records.”
The signature authorization belonged to my father.
Except something was wrong.
I knew his handwriting.
That signature looked almost perfect.
Almost.
“He didn’t sign this.”
Ortiz said nothing.
“He always connected the R to the M.”
She leaned forward.
“Laura noticed that too.”
I looked at her sharply.
“How do you know?”
“Because she photographed nineteen documents.”
Ortiz turned her laptop toward me.
Images filled the screen.
Bank transfers.
Property deeds.
Corporate resolutions.
Insurance documents.
Most dated within the six months before my father died.
One name appeared repeatedly.
Grant Mercer.
Another appeared as witness.
Thomas Voss.
Then I saw something else.
A transfer for $3.8 million.
Beneficiary:
Hollow Ridge Holdings LLC.
“Who owns Hollow Ridge?”
“We’re tracing it.”
I stared at the screen.
Ortiz lowered her voice.
“Daniel, there’s another issue.”
Of course there was.
“Three days after Laura made that recording, she died.”
My stomach tightened.
“And?”
“Her car had been serviced the morning before the crash.”
I remembered.
Laura had complained about the brakes.
I had forgotten.
God help me, I had forgotten.
“She took it to Mercer Automotive.”
Ortiz nodded.
The business belonged to Grant’s oldest friend, Victor Hale.
A man I had known since childhood.
“What did they do?”
“According to the invoice? Brake inspection.”
“And the police?”
“The original crash report says mechanical failure could not be ruled out.”
My mouth went dry.
I had never read the entire report.
I had been sedated at the hospital after collapsing when they told me Laura was dead.
Diane handled everything.
Funeral.
Insurance.
Police communication.
Laura’s possessions.
Everything.
Ortiz watched the realization happen.
“My mother kept the report from me.”
“She may have.”
“She kept the phone.”
“Yes.”
“She knew Laura was investigating my father’s death.”
“It appears so.”
I stood.
“I’m going to the lake house.”
Ortiz rose too.
“No.”
“My wife told me the proof is there.”
“And Grant knows that.”
I stopped.
“If Emma heard them talking about it, they already know the lake house matters.”
“So we get there first.”
“With a warrant.”
I laughed bitterly.
“You keep saying that.”
“Because I’m trying to keep you alive.”
That silenced me.
Ortiz held my gaze.
“Your wife believed two deaths were connected to whatever is hidden there.”
She picked up her coat.
“We do this properly.”
Three hours later, we drove toward Blackwater Lake with four officers and a search warrant.
When the lake house appeared through the trees, my stomach dropped.
The front door was open.
Ortiz stopped the car.
Nobody moved.
“That yours?” she asked.
“No.”
Officers entered first.
The house had been torn apart.
Drawers emptied.
Mattress slashed.
Floorboards pulled up.
Someone had beaten us there.
Ortiz cursed quietly.
Then one officer called from the basement.
“Detective!”
We rushed downstairs.
A section of drywall had been broken open.
Behind it sat a steel lockbox.
Empty.
Except for one thing.
A Polaroid photograph.
My father.
Laura.
And between them, written in Laura’s handwriting:
DANIEL DOESN’T KNOW YET.
May you like
On the back was a date.
Six days before my father died.
