Chapter 3
Mom read the message twice.
Then a third time.
Her hands started shaking.
Officer Bennett asked me to screenshot it.
I did.
Chloe stood beside the Honda looking like she might be sick.
“I swear I didn’t know.”
I believed her.
Not because I suddenly trusted her.
But because the arrogance she had shown at home was gone.
This was different.
She had thought she was getting a free car.
She hadn’t realized she had been dragged into something bigger.
Officer Bennett examined the trunk.
The carpet had been lifted carefully.
The spare tire was still there.
Beside it was an empty rectangular space covered in dust except for one clean outline.
Something had been stored there for years.
Something about the size of a small metal box.
Mom leaned over.
“What could Daniel have put there?”
I looked at Dad’s letter again.
There was nothing else.
No explanation.
No warning.
Just those words.
Check beneath the spare tire.
Officer Bennett took pictures.
“Marcus, don’t contact Ray right now.”
“He stole whatever Dad left me.”
“I know.”
“So what am I supposed to do?”
“Let me handle the legal part.”
Mom looked at him.
“Can you arrest him?”
“Sarah, slow down.”
“He forged Marcus’s signature, transferred his car, and admitted taking something from it.”
Officer Bennett nodded.
“And I need to document all of that properly.”
Chloe suddenly spoke.
“My dad has a safe.”
Everyone turned.
She swallowed.
“In his office.”
Mom frowned.
“What safe?”
Chloe looked embarrassed.
“The one behind the bookshelf.”
I stared at Mom.
“You didn’t know?”
“No.”
Chloe rubbed her arms.
“He told me it was for business documents.”
Ray sold commercial insurance.
At least that was what I thought he did.
He had a home office downstairs, and we had always been told not to touch anything in there.
I had never cared enough to wonder why.
Mom looked at Officer Bennett.
“If he took something from the car, it could be in there.”
“We can’t just open his safe.”
“It’s in my house.”
“That doesn’t automatically give you the right to force it open.”
Mom exhaled sharply.
I walked around the Honda.
The driver’s door was unlocked.
Chloe had left the keys in the cupholder.
I sat behind the wheel.
The smell hit me first.
Old fabric.
Motor oil.
And the faint pine scent from the air fresheners Dad always bought.
For one second, I was sixteen again.
Dad was in the passenger seat laughing because I had stalled at a stop sign.
I gripped the steering wheel.
Mom touched my shoulder.
“We’ll figure this out.”
I nodded.
Then I noticed the glove compartment hanging open.
“Chloe, did you search in here?”
“No.”
Inside were insurance papers, old receipts, the manual, and a photograph.
I pulled it out.
Dad stood beside the Honda.
Next to him was a man I didn’t recognize.
They were standing in front of a small auto repair shop.
On the back, Dad had written:
Daniel + Frank. First day. Hale & Mercer Automotive.
I stared at it.
“Mom?”
She took the photo.
Her eyes widened.
“I haven’t seen this in years.”
“Who’s Frank?”
“Frank Mercer. Your father’s best friend before we moved here.”
“Officer Bennett was Dad’s best friend.”
“One of them.”
“What happened to Frank?”
Mom looked uncomfortable.
“They had a falling-out.”
“About what?”
“I never knew exactly.”
Officer Bennett took the photograph.
“I remember Frank.”
“You do?”
“He and Daniel started a garage when they were in their twenties.”
I stared at him.
“Dad owned a garage?”
“For a few years.”
Dad had worked as a mechanic when I was young, but I had never heard anything about owning a business.
“What happened?”
Officer Bennett looked at Mom.
She sighed.
“Daniel sold his share.”
“Why?”
“He needed money when I was pregnant with you.”
Something about that explanation didn’t feel right.
“If he sold it, why hide this photo?”
Nobody answered.
My phone buzzed again.
Another message from Ray.
Tell your mother to stop digging into things she doesn’t understand.
Mom read it over my shoulder.
Her face changed.
Not fear.
Recognition.
“What?”
She looked toward the windshield.
“I’ve heard him say that before.”
“When?”
“Last year.”
“What were you talking about?”
She hesitated.
“Your father’s life insurance.”
My stomach tightened.
“What about it?”
“Ray asked whether Daniel had left anything besides the house.”
“And?”
“I told him it was none of his business.”
Officer Bennett frowned.
“Sarah, has Ray had access to Daniel’s old financial papers?”
“They’re in the basement filing cabinet.”
“Is it locked?”
“No.”
Mom looked suddenly frightened.
We drove home.
When we arrived, Ray’s truck was gone.
The front door was unlocked.
Inside, the living room looked normal.
Too normal.
Mom hurried to the basement.
I followed.
The filing cabinet stood open.
Every drawer had been pulled out.
Paper covered the floor.
Mom dropped to her knees.
“No.”
“What’s missing?”
She went through folders frantically.
“Daniel’s estate records.”
Officer Bennett came downstairs.
“All of them?”
“The will, insurance papers, bank statements, old business documents.”
She looked at me.
“They’re gone.”
Chloe started crying upstairs.
Not loudly.
Just enough that I could hear her.
I should have been angry with her.
Part of me still was.
But something worse was happening.
Ray wasn’t just jealous of my dead father.
He had been searching through Dad’s past.
And he had been doing it for longer than any of us knew.
Officer Bennett made a call.
Mom sat on the basement stairs.
I picked up one of the papers Ray had dropped.
It was an old bank statement.
Most of it meant nothing.
Then I saw a deposit.
$48,000.
The date was three months before Dad died.
The description read:
MERCER AUTOMOTIVE SETTLEMENT.
“Mom.”
She looked up.
I handed it to her.
She stared at the amount.
“I never knew about this.”
“Where did the money go?”
“I don’t know.”
Officer Bennett looked over her shoulder.
“Could be what was in the car.”
“Forty-eight thousand dollars?”
“Maybe documents related to it.”
I thought about the small empty space beneath the spare tire.
A metal lockbox could easily have fit there.
“Why would Dad hide financial documents in his car?”
Mom whispered, “Because he knew he was dying.”
Officer Bennett looked at her.
“And maybe he didn’t trust someone.”
The words landed hard.
Dad had died years before Ray became my stepfather.
So Dad couldn’t have been hiding something from Ray.
He had been hiding it from someone else.
My phone rang.
Unknown number.
Officer Bennett motioned for me to answer on speaker.
“Hello?”
Silence.
Then a man’s voice.
“Is this Marcus Hale?”
“Yes.”
“My name is Frank Mercer.”
Nobody moved.
The man continued.
“I just got a call from Ray Dawson.”
Mom covered her mouth.
“What did he want?”
“He was asking about your father.”
My skin went cold.
“What did you tell him?”
“Nothing.”
A pause.
Then Frank said, “Marcus, if Ray found what Daniel hid in that Honda, you need to get it back.”
“What is it?”
Another pause.
“A key.”
I looked at Mom.
“A key to what?”
Frank breathed out slowly.
“To an account your father created for you.”
“How much?”
“It’s not just money.”
My chest tightened.
“Then what?”
Frank’s voice dropped.
“It’s proof.”
“Proof of what?”
“That your father didn’t lose his business.”
May you like
I stared at the photograph in my hand.
“He had it stolen from him.”
