Chapter 10 - Olivia Found the Second Key
The airline tickets changed the case.
Not legally at first.
Emotionally.
Dad had planned to leave.
That much was clear.
Why Mexico City?
Why cash?
Why take Olivia?
Why include a ticket for me while leaving a note suggesting I might not come?
Detective Park believed the tickets could represent multiple plans.
Dad may have hoped to convince me to leave with him before I discovered the fraud.
If I refused, perhaps he intended to take Olivia alone.
“Or maybe,” Olivia said, “he wanted everyone to think Grace came with us.”
Park did not answer.
That possibility frightened me most.
My passport had been in Dad's possession without my knowledge.
My name could have been used to create an illusion.
A person leaving the country.
A person disappearing voluntarily.
The accident now sat at the center of too many coincidences.
The prosecution increased pressure on Raymond Cole.
Ray finally admitted another detail.
Dad had asked him a strange question one week before the crash.
“If a car catches fire after a wreck, how much survives?”
Ray claimed he told Dad he was insane.
Dad laughed and said it was about an insurance documentary.
Nobody believed that anymore.
Then Olivia remembered the second key.
Not the locker key.
Another key Dad kept taped beneath the drawer in his office.
A tiny brass key with no markings.
Police searched our house again.
They found what it opened.
A fireproof box hidden behind insulation in the basement.
Inside were dozens of documents.
Some belonged to Mom.
Some belonged to us.
And some belonged to people I didn't know.
Loans.
Investment agreements.
Promissory notes.
Dad had been borrowing money from friends, relatives, coworkers.
Hundreds of thousands of dollars.
He had built an entire life from moving money between holes.
When one debt came due, he borrowed somewhere else.
Mom’s trust became another source.
My identity became another.
Olivia’s identity.
Insurance policies.
The cabin.
Everything.
The total loss exceeded $600,000.
I thought of all the times Dad had criticized me for buying coffee.
“Four dollars every morning adds up, Grace.”
He had been stealing hundreds of thousands.
Hidden beneath the documents was a notebook.
Pages of amounts.
Names.
Dates.
Then a page titled:
G.
Underneath:
Northeastern deposit – $2,100.
Apartment – $3,600.
Move date – June 18.
Credit check likely.
Problem date: May 27.
The crash occurred May 27.
My hands went numb.
Dad knew exactly when my apartment management company planned to run the final credit verification.
If they saw my destroyed credit, I would discover everything before moving.
The crash happened hours before that verification.
Dad hadn't simply wanted time.
He had wanted to prevent May 27 from arriving normally.
Another line appeared beneath it.
PLAN B – MEXICO.
Then:
PLAN C – INSURANCE.
Olivia began crying.
“No.”
Detective Park photographed the page.
The words looked ugly beneath fluorescent basement lights.
Plan C.
Insurance.
My life insurance policy.
Half a million dollars.
For the first time, Park said the words explicitly.
“This significantly changes the homicide inquiry.”
“I didn't die.”
“No.”
“So what does that mean?”
“Potential attempted murder is now being reviewed.”
I sat on the basement stairs.
My father.
Attempted murder.
Those words belonged to documentaries.
Courtroom shows.
Other families.
Not mine.
Then I remembered his voice.
Don't waste time over there.
Maybe the truth had always been exactly as ugly as it sounded.
That night Olivia crawled into bed beside me like she used to after Mom died.
Neither of us slept.
Around three in the morning, she whispered:
“If you had died, I would have gone to Mexico with him.”
“You don't know that.”
“The ticket was there.”
“You were seventeen.”
“I would have believed whatever he told me.”
I turned toward her.
“That would not have been your fault.”
“He would have told me the crash was an accident.”
“Yes.”
“He would have collected your insurance.”
“Probably.”
“And I would have lived with him using money from you.”
I took her hand.
“But that isn't what happened.”
“No.”
“You're here.”
“So are you.”
For the first time since the crash, that felt like enough.
The following afternoon, Detective Park called.
One of the documents inside the basement box contained an account number.
A bank account nobody had previously found.
It was in my name.
Opened eighteen months earlier.
Current balance:
$184,300.
My first reaction was disbelief.
“That's impossible.”
“It exists.”
“Where did the money come from?”
“We're tracing it.”
“Can Dad access it?”
“He did.”
“Then why is the money still there?”
Park paused.
“Because someone froze the account three days before the crash.”
“Who?”
“That’s what makes this unusual.”
The person who froze it was not Dad.
Not Meredith.
Not Mom’s attorney.
The freeze request came from a woman named Catherine Holloway.
May you like
My mother.
Who had been dead for four years.
