Chapter 6 - DANIEL ALREADY KNEW
WORD COUNT: 1,000+ WORDS
I listened to my father’s recording four times.
Not because I misunderstood him.
Because I desperately wanted to.
Daniel knows.
He has known for months.
Every time my father’s voice repeated those words, another memory rearranged itself inside my head.
Daniel asking about my childhood.
Daniel wanting photographs of my father.
Daniel volunteering to help sort his papers after the funeral.
Daniel insisting he accompany me to meetings with Martin.
Daniel asking strangely specific questions about whether my father had ever changed his will.
Things I had once interpreted as concern now felt like reconnaissance.
Martin shut off the recorder.
“Enough.”
“No.”
“Claire—”
“I need to know everything.”
“And you will. But not while you’re in shock.”
I turned toward him.
“I almost married my half brother this morning.”
Martin had no response.
“I stood in a hotel suite wearing my mother’s earrings while people arranged flowers downstairs for a marriage Patricia knew should never happen.”
My voice cracked.
“And Daniel knew.”
Martin’s eyes lowered.
That hurt more than if he had looked away.
My phone vibrated.
Daniel.
Again.
This time, I answered.
Martin reached for my arm.
I raised one finger.
Daniel spoke immediately.
“Claire, thank God.”
I said nothing.
“Where are you?”
Still nothing.
His breathing changed.
“I know you’re angry.”
Angry.
The word was so inadequate I nearly laughed.
“You canceled everything without even speaking to me.”
Finally I said, “Why were you in my house?”
Silence.
Then, carefully, “What?”
“This morning. You and Patricia. Why were you in my house?”
“I went back for documents.”
“My documents?”
“Our documents.”
“There is no our anymore.”
His voice sharpened.
“Claire, don’t do this over something you overheard without context.”
“What context makes ‘she’s too emotional to protect it’ romantic?”
He went quiet.
I could imagine him calculating.
He had always been good at silence.
I used to think it meant he was thoughtful.
Now I realized silence was where Daniel built lies.
“My mother was pushing me,” he said finally. “She’s obsessed with security. With money. You know what she’s like.”
“No, Daniel. Apparently I don’t.”
“Neither do I sometimes.”
That almost impressed me.
Even now, he was positioning himself beside me.
Two victims of Patricia Mercer.
“I love you,” he said.
My stomach turned.
“Do you?”
“Yes.”
“Then answer one question.”
Martin watched me.
I could see fear in his face.
I asked, “When did you first meet my father?”
Daniel stopped breathing.
It was only a second.
Maybe two.
But I heard it.
Then he said, “At that charity dinner. You introduced us.”
A lie.
My father’s recording said Daniel had approached the company under another name before we ever dated seriously.
“I see.”
“Claire—”
“Goodbye, Daniel.”
“Wait.”
I ended the call.
Less than a minute later, my phone lit again.
This time with a text.
WE NEED TO TALK BEFORE YOU MAKE A MISTAKE YOU CAN’T REVERSE.
Martin read it over my shoulder.
“That sounds like a threat.”
“No.”
I stared at the message.
“It sounds like fear.”
And I wanted to know what Daniel feared most.
We spent the next two hours cataloging the investigation room.
My father had created duplicates of almost everything.
Patricia’s financial history.
Daniel’s employment records.
Properties held through shell companies.
Payments moving between accounts shortly before my father died.
One name appeared repeatedly.
Northpoint Advisory.
The company had no public employees, no actual office, and seemingly no purpose.
Yet it had transferred $240,000 to a private security contractor eleven days before my father’s fatal crash.
Martin photographed every page.
“Your father thought someone was watching him.”
“How do you know?”
Martin pointed toward a receipt.
“He hired a counter-surveillance specialist.”
The receipt was dated five days before Dad died.
Another folder contained photographs of a black SUV outside my father’s home.
The same vehicle outside Harbor Street.
And the same vehicle near the restaurant where Daniel and I had our first official date.
I looked closer.
The timestamp was three weeks before that date.
“They were watching me before Daniel asked me out.”
Martin said nothing.
That silence answered enough.
At 9:42 p.m., the building security system notified my phone.
Unauthorized access attempt.
Executive floor.
Someone had entered a valid employee code three times.
Then tried an expired code belonging to my father.
Martin stood.
“Who still knows those?”
“Senior management.”
“And Daniel?”
I thought about all the evenings he had waited in my office while I finished work.
He could have watched me type them.
We checked the hallway cameras.
A man wearing a dark cap stood near the fifth-floor service entrance.
He kept his face angled away.
But I recognized the coat.
Daniel.
He hadn’t come to apologize.
He had come to search.
Martin contacted building security but stopped short of calling police.
“We need to know what he wants.”
I understood.
If Daniel believed I had simply canceled the wedding because of what I overheard, he might still think the basement was secret.
That advantage mattered.
We watched him through cameras.
Daniel entered my office.
He searched my desk.
Then my father’s desk.
He opened cabinets.
Removed books.
Checked behind frames.
Finally he stood very still.
He was looking directly at the shelf concealing the safe.
My pulse climbed.
He moved closer.
Then stopped.
His phone rang.
We couldn’t hear the caller.
But his face changed.
“Enhance the microphone,” I whispered.
The security feed contained limited audio.
Static filled the basement speakers.
Then Daniel’s voice emerged.
“No.”
A pause.
“I told you, she doesn’t know.”
Another pause.
His jaw tightened.
“I said I’ll handle Claire.”
Patricia.
It had to be.
Daniel continued.
“No, you listen to me. If she finds what Thomas kept here, the house won’t matter.”
Thomas.
My father.
Not Mr. Ellison.
Not Claire’s father.
Thomas.
The familiarity turned my stomach.
Daniel lowered his voice.
“You promised me he destroyed the test.”
My hand tightened around the desk.
Martin looked at me.
On screen, Daniel paced.
Then suddenly stopped.
“What do you mean Martin has it?”
Both of us froze.
Daniel listened.
His eyes narrowed.
Then he whispered, “You should have told me that before.”
The call ended.
For several seconds, he stood alone in my father’s office.
Then he opened his messages.
We couldn’t see what he typed.
Martin’s phone buzzed.
A message had arrived from an unknown number.
I watched him read it.
“What?”
He handed me the screen.
It contained one sentence.
ASK MARTIN WHAT HE DID THE NIGHT THOMAS DIED.
I looked up.
Martin had gone white.
Before I could speak, Daniel suddenly looked toward the security camera in my father’s office.
Not past it.
At it.
Then he smiled.
A tiny, exhausted smile.
And spoke loudly enough for the microphone to catch every word.
“I know you’re watching, Claire.”
My blood chilled.
Daniel stepped closer to the camera.
“If Martin is with you, ask him why he was at your father’s house at 11:40 the night before the crash.”
Martin whispered, “Claire—”
Daniel continued.
“Ask him why the police never saw that security footage.”
The screen flickered.
Then went black.
I turned slowly toward the man who had been my father’s attorney for twenty-seven years.
“Martin.”
He shut his eyes.
“Tell me Daniel is lying.”
May you like
Martin opened them again.
“He isn’t.”
