Chapter 6 - The Car That Was Mine
I had spent three years believing Emily died driving her own car.
I remembered the mangled black sedan.
I remembered identifying her wedding ring.
I remembered a detective telling me the fire had destroyed most identifying features.
I had been too shattered to question the details.
Now Marcus was telling me the car had belonged to me.
“That’s not possible.”
“It was your older sedan,” he said.
“You had already ordered the replacement.”
Memory returned.
The week before Emily died, my car had developed electrical problems.
Our driver suggested I use another vehicle until it was repaired.
Emily borrowed mine on the morning of the crash because hers was blocked behind a delivery truck.
Except Marcus claimed she hadn’t.
“Then what did she drive?”
“Grace’s car.”
I turned toward Grace.
She looked equally confused.
“I wasn’t working here yet.”
“No,” Marcus said.
“You weren’t.”
Grace had known Emily from college, but she only became Noah’s nanny after Emily died.
Marcus continued.
“Emily called Grace that morning.”
Grace suddenly covered her mouth.
I looked at her.
“What?”
“I lent her my car.”
“You never told me.”
“She asked me not to.”
“Why?”
Grace began crying.
“She said someone had been following her.”
The pieces shifted.
Emily had borrowed Grace’s car to avoid being tracked.
Yet somehow she had still ended up dead inside mine.
“How did she get my car?”
Grace shook her head.
“I don’t know.”
Marcus leaned forward.
“Daniel, I saw Emily that morning.”
“Where?”
“At Bell’s clinic.”
“You just said she took Grace’s car.”
“She did.”
“She parked two blocks away.”
“She told me she had evidence against Victoria.”
“She said she was meeting someone who could help.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know.”
I paced the conference room.
“What happened next?”
“I left.”
“Why?”
“Because Emily told me if I really wanted to help, I needed to stay away from her.”
Marcus stared at me.
“She hated me by then.”
“She had every reason.”
“Yes.”
He didn’t argue.
“That was the last time I saw her alive.”
Our attorney interrupted.
“There’s another issue.”
Rebecca had received police archives from the crash investigation.
The vehicle identification number confirmed Marcus’s claim.
The destroyed car was mine.
Then Rebecca showed us something stranger.
Emily’s cell phone had never been recovered.
Her purse had never been recovered.
The only personal item conclusively identified at the scene was her wedding ring.
I looked at Grace.
“You said Emily was afraid.”
“Yes.”
“And she recorded that video two days before she died.”
“Yes.”
“What if she expected something to happen?”
Grace understood the question immediately.
“You think the crash wasn’t random.”
“No.”
I looked at Marcus.
“I think somebody wanted everyone to believe Emily was in that car.”
A detective entered with a new report.
He placed a photograph before us.
Police had searched Dr. Bell’s storage unit.
Inside they found boxes of files.
One box was labeled with Emily’s name.
Another contained photographs of Noah.
Hundreds of them.
School gates.
Playgrounds.
Birthday parties.
Our driveway.
And beneath those photographs was a passport application.
For Noah Hale.
The photograph was real.
The signature was forged.
The emergency contact listed was Victoria.
But she wasn’t identified as Victoria Hale.
She was identified by another name.
May you like
Victoria Bell.
Dr. Robert Bell’s younger sister.
