Chương 10 - The Name on My Father's File
Nathan Mercer eventually told us what happened on March 17.
Not everything.
But enough.
My father had confronted Julian.
He had threatened to expose the connection to Rebecca.
Julian panicked.
Mercer supplied medication.
He claimed he believed Julian only wanted to frighten my father or make him temporarily ill.
I didn't believe him.
Neither did Ruiz.
My father died that evening.
The autopsy had been limited because his medical history made a heart attack plausible.
Nobody looked deeper.
Julian comforted me through the funeral.
He stood beside the coffin.
He held my hand.
He helped carry my father's photographs into the memorial hall.
That memory almost destroyed me.
I had leaned on the man who may have caused the death I was grieving.
Mercer's cooperation gave investigators enough to obtain warrants.
They searched Sabrina's apartment.
Julian's second apartment.
Storage units.
Vehicles.
The results were devastating.
Copies of my medical records.
Forged signatures.
Insurance correspondence.
Disposable phones.
Cash.
Photographs of our house.
Even photographs of the electrical panel.
Julian had studied everything.
But Julian himself had disappeared.
Three days passed.
Then five.
News outlets began reporting that police wanted to question a Cleveland businessman in connection with financial fraud and historical suspicious deaths.
They didn't publish every detail.
But Julian's face appeared on television.
The man I'd married became a wanted man.
I moved into a protected location with Caleb.
I should have felt safer.
I didn't.
On the sixth night, I woke at 2:13 a.m.
Exactly the time Caleb had called me.
My phone displayed an unknown number.
I answered.
No voice.
Only breathing.
Then:
“Clara.”
Julian.
I sat upright.
Police had prepared me for this possibility.
“Where are you?”
“You know me better than anyone.”
“No. I don't.”
A pause.
“That hurts.”
“You tried to kill me.”
“Is that what Mercer told you?”
“I saw you.”
“You saw what fear wanted you to see.”
“You had a syringe.”
“For you.”
My blood chilled.
“Why?”
“You were sick.”
“I wasn't.”
“You've always been stubborn.”
The conversation was being traced.
I needed him talking.
“What happened to Rebecca?”
Silence.
“Did you love her?”
“Yes.”
The answer came too quickly.
“Did you kill her?”
“No.”
“Michelle?”
“No.”
“My father?”
Longer silence.
Then Julian said:
“Your father never knew when to stop.”
My throat tightened.
“What did you do?”
“Nothing he hadn't already done to himself.”
It was evasive.
But revealing.
“You poisoned him.”
“Words like that make everything sound simple.”
My hand shook.
“Then make it complicated.”
Julian laughed softly.
“That was always what I loved about you.”
Loved.
Past tense.
“You didn't love me.”
“I did.”
“You insured me for twenty-four million dollars.”
“Those things aren't mutually exclusive.”
I felt sick.
Then he said something unexpected.
“I never planned for you to find out.”
“That makes it better?”
“No.”
His voice changed.
“I planned for you never to be afraid.”
That was perhaps the most horrifying sentence he had ever spoken.
He believed murder was kinder if the victim didn't know.
The trace was progressing.
Ruiz gestured for me to continue.
“Where are you?”
“Close.”
My eyes moved toward the dark window.
“How close?”
“Closer than your police friends think.”
The line went dead.
Ruiz immediately ordered the building secured.
Nothing happened.
Until an officer checked the parking garage.
A black sedan sat three rows from the entrance.
Inside was Julian's phone.
He had left it there deliberately.
A message appeared on its screen.
You still think this is about money.
Ruiz stared at it.
“What else would it be?”
I knew.
Control.
Money had started it.
But now Julian wanted something more.
He wanted to prove that even after everything we'd discovered, he was still the person deciding how the story ended.
He was wrong.
Because inside his abandoned car, investigators found a single fingerprint on an envelope.
May you like
It belonged to Sabrina Mercer.
And Sabrina was finally ready to talk.
