Chapter 7 - The Book My Father Left Me
Samuel Pike disappeared from my apartment with the green book at 5:52 a.m.
Capital police arrived at 6:04.
They found no sign of forced entry.
That was worse.
Someone had given Pike access.
My building used encrypted keycards.
Mine, management’s master card, or law enforcement.
Lucas pulled the access log.
A master key had opened my apartment at 5:47.
Registered user: Office of the Attorney General Facilities Division.
Naomi read it twice.
“They’re not even hiding.”
“Or someone wants us to think they aren’t.”
By sunrise, every fact had two possible meanings.
Pike could be a victim or an accomplice.
Mercer could be corrupt or framed.
Vance could be protecting the institution or protecting himself.
Michael could be a coerced witness or a man telling partial truths because full truth would incriminate him.
Only Mom’s injuries were simple.
Someone had hit her.
Everything else was fog.
At 7:10, a state judge formally transferred the assault investigation away from Westbridge police to the independent bureau. Captain Ross was ordered to surrender his service weapon and remain available for questioning.
He vanished before the order was served.
So did Dana.
Michael was taken into protective custody after finally agreeing to give a full recorded statement.
He hated me for insisting on it.
“You’re treating me like a criminal.”
“You signed fraudulent invoices.”
“I was threatened.”
“Then say that under oath.”
“You’re my sister.”
“And Mom is our mother.”
That ended the argument.
Around eight, I sat beside Mom’s hospital bed while she slept.
For the first time since 2:27, the room was quiet.
I opened Dad’s old letters through cloud scans Mom had made years earlier. Most were ordinary: grocery lists, insurance notes, birthday cards.
Then I found one addressed to me but never sent.
Evie,
You think justice is a straight road. I hope you never learn how often it bends around powerful men.
The page ended there.
No second sheet.
I stared at it until the words blurred.
Mom woke.
“You look like him when you’re angry.”
“I’m not angry.”
She gave me the look mothers reserve for ridiculous lies.
“Fine. I’m furious.”
“Good. Fury keeps you warm. Just don’t let it drive.”
I showed her the letter.
She read it.
“I never saw this.”
“Where were Dad’s papers after he died?”
“In the attic.”
“Who had access?”
“Family. Warren came by once.”
I looked at her.
“Why?”
“He said your father had borrowed police files and they needed them returned.”
“Did Dad work with Ross?”
“Not exactly. They knew each other.”
“How well?”
Mom hesitated.
“Warren dated me before your father.”
I stared.
“What?”
“High school. Briefly.”
“You never told us.”
“Because it didn’t matter.”
“It matters now.”
She sighed.
“Warren never forgave me for choosing Thomas.”
“That sounded more dramatic than I intended.”
“Mom, the man just helped frame you for assault.”
“Fair point.”
She looked toward the window.
“Your father and Warren disliked each other. Later, when Thomas began inspecting city contracts, he complained Warren kept appearing around sites that had police-protection arrangements.”
“What kind of arrangements?”
“Security. Permit enforcement. Sometimes protesters were removed.”
I thought of Riverside’s redevelopment deals.
Land acquired cheaply.
Tenants evicted.
Contracts routed through friendly companies.
Project Lantern might not have been a single crime.
It might have been a method.
At 8:43, Naomi entered carrying two coffees and a sealed envelope.
“This was delivered downstairs by courier.”
“To whom?”
“You.”
“No return address.”
Inside was one photograph.
My father stood beside Samuel Vance outside Riverside Machine Works.
The date printed at the bottom was four days before Dad died.
On the back, in my father’s handwriting:
IF I DIE, ASK WHY SAMUEL LEFT EARLY.
Mom covered her mouth.
Naomi whispered, “That’s Vance.”
“Yes.”
There was also a key taped beneath the photograph.
Small brass key.
Number stamped into it: 319.
“Locker?” Naomi asked.
“Maybe.”
Mom stared at it.
“Bus station.”
I turned.
“What?”
“Your father used to rent lockers at the old Westbridge bus terminal when he traveled for work. They numbered them like that.”
The terminal had closed years ago.
The building now served as municipal storage.
Which meant Ross could access it.
We called Lucas.
He arranged a warrant and met us there with two independent investigators.
Locker 319 still existed in a dusty corridor behind stacks of broken office furniture.
The brass key opened it.
Inside sat a metal cash box.
Naomi photographed it before Lucas lifted the lid.
No ledger.
No documents.
Only a digital voice recorder.
Old. Scratched.
Lucas bagged it and played a forensic copy on an offline laptop.
Static filled the speakers.
Then my father’s voice.
“I’m recording this on October fourteenth. Samuel says he can help, but only if I give him the original ledger.”
A second voice entered.
Samuel Vance.
“You don’t understand what you’re holding, Tom.”
Dad replied, “I understand exactly.”
“No. You understand Westbridge. This is bigger.”
“How much bigger?”
A long pause.
Then Vance said, “Statewide.”
The recording crackled.
My father: “Then we expose it statewide.”
Vance: “If you do that now, people die.”
Dad: “People are already dying.”
Another pause.
Then footsteps.
Dad said, “Why is Ross here?”
The recording ended.
No one spoke.
Lucas rewound the last ten seconds.
Again.
Why is Ross here?
Then silence.
Naomi looked at me.
“If this is authentic, Vance and Ross were together with your father days before his death.”
I nodded.
My phone rang.
Attorney General Samuel Vance.
I answered.
His voice sounded tired.
“Evelyn, you found the recorder.”
Not a question.
I looked at the others.
“How did you know?”
“Because I put it there.”
After the recorder played, no one touched it for a long time. The machine’s plastic casing was scratched where Dad’s thumb must have pressed the button. It was an absurd detail to notice, but grief often enters through objects too small to defend against.
Mom asked me to play his voice again.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
We listened.
Why is Ross here?
Again.
Mom’s eyes closed.
“That was his suspicious voice.”
“I didn’t know he had one.”
“Oh, yes. Your father had six voices for irritation.”
“Seven,” Michael said quietly from the doorway. “You forgot the one he used when I dented the Buick.”
Mom looked at him.
For one moment, all three of us remembered Dad alive.
Then Mom turned away from Michael again.
May you like
Memory had not become forgiveness.
Not yet.
