PART 4: THE MESSAGE OUR FATHER LEFT BEHIND
Uncle Alan didn’t shout.
He stood beside my bed, staring at Detective Ortiz as if she had spoken in a language he almost understood.
“David called me that afternoon,” he said.
Ortiz opened her notebook.
“The afternoon he died?”
Alan nodded.
“I was overseas. I missed it.”
He took his phone from his pocket, then stopped.
“That was two phones ago.”
“Do you remember whether he left a message?”
“He said he needed to talk about Brenda. I called back the next morning.”
His voice thinned.
“By then, there was nobody to call.”
Chloe closed her eyes.
I stared at the small crease in our blanket where our hands met.
For years, Dad’s death had been a terrible thing that happened to us.
Now people were asking questions that made it feel like something someone might have done.
Ortiz let the silence settle before she spoke.
“We’re requesting the original crash records. We’re also looking at the financial concerns mentioned in the recording.”
“Do you think Edric killed him?” I asked.
“I don’t know.”
She said it without looking away.
“That’s why we have to investigate.”
I hated the answer.
I trusted her for giving it.
After she left, Alan sat between our beds until the sky beyond the window turned dark.
Once, when he thought we were sleeping, I heard him whisper, “I should have come home.”
I opened my eyes.
“He chose to hurt us,” I said.
Alan looked at me.
I had never said anything like that to an adult before.
Usually, adults explained why something had happened.
Stress.
Money.
Marriage.
Difficult children.
This time, I wanted the sentence to stay simple.
“He chose.”
Alan wiped his face.
“Yes,” he said. “He did.”
The following morning, Evelyn Shaw arrived carrying a worn leather briefcase.
I recognized her before she introduced herself.
At Dad’s funeral, she had knelt to speak to us while everyone else talked over our heads.
Brenda had interrupted.
I remembered that now.
So many small memories were changing shape.
Evelyn asked whether we wanted Alan and Miriam to stay.
We said yes.
Then she placed a thin folder on the table.
“First, the trust is secure. I’ve notified the institution managing it about the suspected forged documents.”
Chloe let out a breath.
“Can Mom still do something?”
“We’re putting safeguards in place while the documents are examined. Any request involving either of you will receive additional scrutiny.”
“And when we turn eighteen?” I asked.
“We’ll discuss your choices directly with you. There is no reason to decide everything from a hospital bed.”
For the first time, our birthday sounded like something that might belong to us.
Evelyn opened her folder.
“Your father contacted me shortly before he died. He believed Brenda had moved money from an account without his permission.”
“How much?” Alan asked.
“Forty-eight thousand dollars.”
I looked at Chloe.
We had heard Edric call us expensive.
We had listened to Brenda complain about grocery bills while we cut sandwiches in half.
Forty-eight thousand dollars.
“Where did it go?” I asked.
“That’s one of the questions investigators are examining.”
Evelyn paused.
“There’s something else. Your father sent me an email the evening before his accident. I provided it to Detective Ortiz this morning.”
She slid a printed page toward us.
Dad’s name appeared at the top.
David Morgan.
For a moment, I couldn’t read anything beneath it.
Then the words began to make sense.
Evelyn,
Brenda has told me Kaine is only helping her with a business opportunity. The transfers don’t support that explanation. I’m bringing the statements tomorrow.
Please don’t contact her before we meet. I need to understand what she’s done before I decide how to protect the girls.
At the bottom was one more line.
If Alan calls, you have my permission to speak openly with him.
I read it twice.
Then a third time.
Brenda had told us she met Edric at a bereavement group.
She used to say he understood her grief.
She used to say Dad would have wanted her to be happy.
“She knew him already,” Chloe whispered.
“Yes,” Evelyn said.
“How long?”
“I don’t have that answer yet.”
I pressed my palm against the page.
Dad had known something was wrong.
He had been trying to reach someone.
And after he died, Brenda had brought the man he was worried about into our home.
That afternoon, Chloe told the doctors she could walk by herself.
She made it four steps before her knees began to shake.
A nurse helped her back to bed.
Chloe cried from frustration.
“I just want to leave.”
I understood.
Every sound in the hallway still made us look up.
Every unfamiliar voice might be our mother.
Miriam sat with us and explained that the hospital, the child-protection team, and Alan were working on a safe discharge plan.
There would be follow-up appointments. Somewhere to stay. People we could contact.
Ordinary arrangements.
They mattered more than any speech someone could have given us.
Then Miriam hesitated.
“Your mother has asked whether you would read a note.”
“No,” Chloe said.
I almost answered with her.
Then I thought about the blue folder.
“What happens if I say yes?”
“You can read it here. You don’t have to respond.”
“Can Detective Ortiz see it first?”
Miriam nodded.
The note reached us later in a plain envelope.
Ortiz had asked that we leave it in its sleeve.
There were only five lines.
Faye,
I know you’re angry, but there are things you don’t understand.
Edric is frightened. He says people will misunderstand private conversations.
You need to stop giving them access to your father’s account.
Please think about what this will do to Chloe.
Mom.
Chloe read the last line over my shoulder.
For a long moment, neither of us spoke.
Then she said, “She still thinks that will work.”
“What?”
“Making you afraid for me.”
I looked at my sister.
Her face was pale. Her hands were shaking.
But her eyes stayed on the note.
“She never asks what this did to us,” Chloe said.
I handed it back to Ortiz.
“I don’t want to answer.”
“All right.”
“Please keep it.”
She did.
Two days later, we left the hospital with Alan.
Chloe wore a borrowed sweatshirt. I carried a bag of medications and discharge papers.
Everything we owned that mattered seemed to fit between our joined hands.
At the entrance, Alan stopped beside the car.
“Front or back?”
Chloe looked confused.
“Where do you want to sit?” he asked.
“Together,” she said.
He opened the back door.
Neither of us spoke during the drive.
Whenever Alan slowed at a turn, I checked the street signs to make sure we weren’t going home.
He noticed in the mirror.
“We’re going to the place Miriam showed you,” he said gently. “Nobody’s changing the plan.”
Only then did I lean against the seat.
That first night, I woke to the sound of footsteps.
I was out of bed before I knew where I was.
Chloe sat up, frightened by my movement.
The door stayed open.
Alan appeared in the hallway holding a glass of water.
“Sorry,” he whispered. “Just me.”
I waited for anger.
For a demand to explain why we were awake.
He pointed toward the kitchen.
“Want some?”
Chloe nodded.
We sat at the small table in our socks while the refrigerator hummed.
Alan put three glasses down.
Nobody spoke about the hospital.
Nobody made us talk about Dad.
For ten minutes, we drank water in a quiet kitchen.
I would remember that longer than the ride out of the emergency room.
The next afternoon, Ortiz called.
She wanted to visit.
When she arrived, she carried no dramatic announcement.
She sat across from us and asked whether we needed a break before she had even started.
Then she placed a photograph on the table.
It showed a sheet of paper covered in Dad’s handwriting.
“Do you recognize this?”
“Yes,” I said immediately.
Dad wrote his sevens with a line through them.
He had taught me to do the same.
“Where did you find it?”
“In material recovered from your mother’s house.”
I leaned closer.
There were dates down one side.
Amounts down the other.
Beside two entries, Dad had written E. Kaine.
“This is part of what we believe he intended to bring to Ms. Shaw,” Ortiz said.
Alan studied the photograph.
“Brenda said all his working papers were lost with the car.”
Ortiz nodded.
“She told us that, too.”
“Where was it?” I asked.
“In a locked document box in her bedroom.”
Chloe moved her chair closer to mine.
Ortiz took out a second photograph.
An envelope.
Our names were written across the front.
Faye and Chloe.
Something inside my chest pulled so sharply that I had to catch my breath.
“Is that for us?”
“It appears to be. We’ve documented it and preserved the original. This is a copy of what was inside.”
She set two pages before us.
The first was a short letter.
My girls,
If your mother and I separate, I need you to understand that none of this is because of you. You don’t have to choose who to love. You don’t have to fix what adults have broken.
I am making arrangements so you will be safe and cared for, whatever happens between us.
Tomorrow I’m speaking to Evelyn. Then we’ll talk together.
I love you both. Nothing changes that.
Dad.
I covered my mouth.
Tomorrow.
He had thought he had another day.
Beside me, Chloe bent over the page and wept without making a sound.
Alan moved his chair close enough for her to lean against him.
Ortiz waited.
Then I noticed the second page.
It was a printed message.
A time.
A meeting place.
A name.
Edric Kaine.
“Why was this with the letter?” I asked.
“We’re still establishing that.”
“What does it say?”
My eyes wouldn’t hold still long enough to read.
Ortiz spoke carefully.
“It asks your father to meet him that evening. The location is near the road where the crash occurred.”
Alan reached for the table.
“You said the accident was being reviewed.”
“It is.”
“Was Kaine there?”
Ortiz paused.
Then she said, “He told us he had never met David.”
I looked at the printed message again.
Under Edric’s name was a sentence so ordinary it made me feel sick.
Come alone. We can sort this out before Brenda makes it worse.
Before I could ask another question, Ortiz’s phone rang.
She glanced at the screen and stepped into the hallway.
Through the open doorway, I heard only her side.
“When?”
A pause.
“Has she asked for counsel?”
Another pause.
“Keep them separated. I’m on my way.”
When she returned, she picked up her coat.
“What happened?” Alan asked.
“Brenda has asked to give another statement.”
Chloe lifted her head.
“About us?”
“About the night your father died.”
I stood so quickly my chair scraped the floor.
“What did she say?”
Ortiz held my gaze.
“She says she was in the car with him.”…
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