Chapter 10 - WHAT THE ROAD REMEMBERED
I didn’t answer Mason.
Ruiz took screenshots and told me to keep the phone.
At the hospital, a doctor asked when I had last felt unusually drowsy.
“Two nights ago.”
“What did you take?”
“Nothing knowingly.”
They collected samples.
Nobody promised a test would explain the past several months.
The doctor said that plainly.
I appreciated one honest limit in a week full of lies.
That evening, Ruiz called again.
A former restaurant employee had answered an appeal for information.
He remembered Caroline.
He also remembered an argument near closing time.
His old phone contained a short clip he had sent a friend because he thought someone might need help.
This video had an ending.
Caroline walked quickly toward her car.
Mason followed.
Victoria grabbed Caroline’s keys.
Caroline pulled them back.
Then Mason said something I could hear even through the wind.
“You go to the bank tomorrow, Daniel goes down with us.”
Caroline stopped.
“You leave my husband out of this.”
Victoria answered.
“Then stop acting like you have a choice.”
The employee had lowered his phone when his manager called him inside.
But the footage showed Mason getting into his truck.
Victoria climbed into the passenger seat.
Caroline drove away first.
They followed.
I watched it once.
Ruiz didn’t ask me to watch it again.
“There’s more,” she said.
Investigators had located the truck’s old insurer records.
An inspection after a minor claim had photographed damage to the front right corner nine days after Caroline’s death.
A replaced headlamp.
Fresh paint.
Mason had described it as a parking accident.
“That doesn’t prove the crash,” Ruiz said.
“No,” I replied.
“But he lied.”
“Yes.”
For the first time, she didn’t soften the word.
When I got home, Lily was asleep on the couch beside Owen.
He looked up.
“I’ll go if you want.”
I shook my head.
“Stay.”
He covered his face with one hand.
I sat beside my daughter.
There was a white envelope beneath the front door.
No stamp.
No name.
Inside was a photograph of Lily outside the interview center.
Taken that afternoon.
May you like
On the back, someone had written:
Stop digging, or she loses another parent.
