Chapter Two: My Father’s Final Investigation
I removed the memory card, slipped it into my sleeve, and closed the laptop.
“Emily?” Daniel called. “Why is the door locked?”
“I’m sick.”
He stood outside for several seconds.
“Open the door.”
“I need a minute.”
His voice softened, but the softness sounded rehearsed.
“You’ve had a terrible day. Let me help you.”
I flushed the toilet, ran the faucet, and hid the capsule inside a box of tissues. When I opened the door, Daniel studied my face.
“What were you doing?”
“Trying not to fall apart.”
He reached for me, but I stepped away.
For the first time in our marriage, I was afraid of him.
The next morning, Daniel left for the office. Margaret remained downstairs, pretending to read while watching every move I made.
I told her I needed fresh air, then drove to the public library.
Using headphones, I played my father’s video again.
He explained that Collins Development had been diverting money from pension accounts and public housing projects into shell companies. The missing funds totaled nearly eighteen million dollars.
Daniel had approved several transfers.
Margaret controlled the shell companies.
My father had discovered the scheme while helping an old coworker correct a retirement account. When he confronted Daniel privately, Daniel claimed the irregularities were temporary accounting errors.
Then the threats began.
Someone broke into my father’s home but took nothing. His medication disappeared. A car followed him for three days.
My father started collecting evidence.
“I don’t know how much time I have,” he said in the video. “But the card in this capsule is only the key. The full files are stored somewhere they will never think to search.”
He held up an old photograph of us at Lake Greenwood.
On the back, he had written one sentence:
Where Emily caught her first fish.
I drove to the lake immediately.
My father had kept a small wooden cabin there. Daniel hated the place, calling it damp and worthless. That was probably why my father chose it.
Beneath a loose floorboard near the fireplace, I found a waterproof case containing printed ledgers, bank records, voice recordings, and a flash drive.
One recording captured Daniel and Margaret arguing in my father’s kitchen.
“You were supposed to scare him,” Daniel said.
“I handled it,” Margaret replied.
“His daughter will ask questions.”
“Emily believes whatever you tell her.”
My hands shook so violently that I nearly dropped the recorder.
Another file showed that my father’s death had not been a natural heart attack. Margaret had paid a private caregiver to replace one of his medications with pills that could dangerously affect his heart rhythm.
The caregiver had later disappeared.
I copied everything to several encrypted drives and sent one to my father’s attorney, Samuel Ortiz.
Then I called him.
“Do not return home,” Samuel said after reviewing the first documents. “Go somewhere public. I’m contacting federal investigators.”
But Daniel had already tracked my location through the family phone plan.
When I stepped outside the cabin, his car blocked the driveway.
Margaret sat in the passenger seat.
Daniel got out.
“You should have left Dad’s ashes alone,” I said.
His eyes moved toward the cabin.
“Give me the files.”
“You knew what your mother did to him.”
“I knew she was trying to protect the company.”
“She caused his death.”
Daniel’s face tightened. “You don’t understand what was at stake. Thousands of employees depend on us.”
“You stole from those employees.”
Margaret stepped from the car.
“Your father was an old man who refused to understand loyalty.”
“My father understood it better than either of you.”
Daniel moved toward me.
I held up my phone.
“Everything is already with an attorney.”
He stopped.
Sirens sounded in the distance.
Margaret turned toward Daniel with sudden fury.
“You said she trusted you.”
“She did,” I replied. “Until you helped flush her father down the toilet.”
Black vehicles entered the narrow road behind Daniel’s car.
May you like
Federal agents surrounded the cabin.
For the first time, Margaret Collins lost her composure.
