Special Agent Naomi Voss arrived at 5:36 that afternoon.
She came alone.
No dramatic escort.
No visible weapon.
No announcement beyond Detective Shaw opening the door and saying, “She’s here.”
Voss was in her late fifties, with silver threaded through close-cropped black hair and a face that looked accustomed to withholding conclusions. She carried a hard-sided document case.
Her first words were not about Dad.
“I need to verify both girls want me here.”
Chloe nodded.
“Yes.”
I did too.
Voss looked at Rebecca.
“Counsel?”
“Present.”
Then Alan.
“Family?”
“Uncle.”
Finally Mom.
Voss studied her longest.
“Brenda Morgan.”
Mom swallowed.
“Yes.”
“We met once.”
Mom stared.
“No.”
“You didn’t know my name.”
That silenced her.
Voss sat.
“David asked me to watch his family if his investigation failed.”
Anger rose unexpectedly.
“You did a terrible job.”
The words came from me.
Alan looked startled.
Voss did not.
“Yes.”
No defense.
That disarmed me more than an explanation would have.
“You knew about Edric?”
“Not soon enough.”
“Dad named him.”
“He named Eric Kane as a threat connected to Victor Hale. I did not know Kane later entered your household under the name Edric Kaine until today.”
“How?”
“David’s alert.”
“The one triggered at midnight?”
“Yes.”
Voss opened the case.
Inside were paper files.
Old-fashioned.
Deliberately offline.
“Your father did not trust digital systems completely.”
That sounded right.
“He gave me records concerning Victor, Mercer and Kane. I pursued what I could.”
“What happened?”
“Victor disappeared. Mercer’s conduct could not be proved. Kane vanished under his original identity. Then David died.”
“And you stopped?”
“No.”
She looked at Mom.
“Brenda stopped cooperating.”
Mom stared at her.
“I never spoke to you.”
“Exactly.”
Voss removed a letter.
“I attempted contact three times.”
Mom looked confused.
“I never received anything.”
“Certified mail was refused.”
“I didn’t refuse it.”
“Someone did.”
We all knew who probably had.
Edric.
Voss continued.
“I called the house twice. A man answered the second time and said you had retained counsel and wanted no further contact.”
Mom covered her mouth.
“Edric.”
“Likely.”
Rebecca leaned forward.
“Why not contact Alan?”
“I did.”
Alan frowned.
“When?”
“Through an intermediary.”
His expression changed.
“Rebecca.”
Rebecca looked at him.
“I was told an investigator wanted confirmation the trust remained untouched. I never received Voss’s name.”
“Compartmentalization,” Voss said. “At the time we believed Mercer still had access to investigative systems.”
Alan looked disgusted.
“Everyone separated information so effectively that nobody protected the girls.”
Voss accepted that.
“Yes.”
Chloe looked at the document case.
“What do you know about Dad’s death?”
Voss became still.
“Not enough.”
“His death certificate is fake.”
“I learned that an hour ago.”
“Did you know he wasn’t at the hospital listed?”
“No.”
“Where was he?”
Voss removed a folder.
“According to a surveillance log I recovered after his death, David attended a meeting at a private property outside the city.”
“With who?”
“Victor Hale.”
Mom gasped.
“And?”
“Daniel Mercer.”
Rebecca swore quietly.
“Anyone else?”
Voss slid a photograph onto the table.
“Eric Kane.”
The picture had been taken from a distance.
Dad stood beside a dark vehicle.
Victor faced him.
Mercer stood near the passenger door.
And several feet behind them was Edric.
Younger.
Same posture.
Same shoulders.
Same controlled stillness.
My stomach turned.
“When?” I asked.
“The afternoon David died.”
Mom began crying.
Voss placed another photograph beside it.
Dad entering a building.
Then Victor.
Then Mercer.
Then Edric.
Time stamps appeared along the bottom.
No photograph showed Dad leaving.
“Who took these?” Detective Shaw asked.
“An investigator David hired privately.”
“Name?”
“Thomas Reed.”
“Where is Reed?”
“Dead.”
Of course.
“How?”
“Car accident six months later.”
Chloe stared at Voss.
“You believe that?”
“I believe he died in a car accident. Whether the accident was intentional remains unresolved.”
I looked at Dad’s photograph.
“What happened inside?”
“We don’t know.”
“Mercer does.”
“Probably.”
“Edric?”
“Probably.”
“Victor?”
“If alive.”
Three men might know how our father spent his final hours.
One had raised his hand against us.
One had just escaped a guarded hospital.
One was a ghost.
“What happened to Dad’s body?” Chloe asked.
Voss’s expression changed.
“That is complicated.”
My chest tightened.
“Why?”
“The funeral home received a body under David’s name.”
Mom nodded rapidly.
“Yes. I saw him.”
“You saw his face.”
“Yes.”
“Did you identify him before preparation?”
“No.”
“Who did?”
Mom stopped.
“I thought the hospital.”
“There is no hospital record.”
Voss opened another folder.
“The funeral home’s intake documentation lists delivery by a private mortuary transport company.”
“Real company?”
“No longer operating.”
“Who signed?”
“A man using the name Michael Trent.”
Rebecca asked, “Known alias?”
Voss looked toward Dad’s surveillance photograph.
“Eric Kane used it twice.”
Every eye turned toward Mom.
She whispered, “Edric delivered David’s body?”
“Possibly.”
Chloe leaned forward.
“What do you mean possibly?”
“The signature resembles one associated with Kane. We have not established who physically made the delivery.”
“Can Dad be exhumed?”
Silence.
Mom recoiled.
“Chloe.”
“What?”
“That’s your father.”
“That’s exactly why.”
Mom started shaking her head.
“No.”
Chloe looked at her.
“You lied about everything else.”
“I did not lie about burying your father.”
“Do you know that?”
The question cut through the room.
Mom’s mouth opened.
Nothing came.
I hated Chloe for asking.
Then I hated myself because I needed the answer too.
Voss spoke carefully.
“Exhumation requires legal process. We are not deciding that in this room.”
Chloe sat back.
“Fine.”
Voss turned another page.
“There is another issue.”
She placed a photograph on the table.
This one came from the funeral home.
Dad lay on a preparation table.
His face was partially visible.
I looked away.
Then back.
Something felt wrong.
Not dramatically.
Not enough to say stranger.
Just wrong.
Chloe stared longer.
“His hand.”
My stomach tightened.
“What?”
She pointed.
The photograph showed the left arm.
Dad’s hand rested beside him.
“What about it?” Alan asked.
Chloe looked at me.
“Dad broke his ring finger.”
I remembered.
Skiing accident when we were nine.
The bone healed crooked.
Dad used to joke that it pointed toward bad financial decisions.
The hand in the photograph looked straight.
Rebecca leaned closer.
“Could angle explain it?”
“Maybe.”
Chloe shook her head.
“No.”
Voss did not dismiss her.
She removed another photograph.
Dad alive.
Holding a coffee cup.
His left ring finger bent slightly toward the middle finger.
Then the mortuary image.
Straight.
My pulse pounded.
“Maybe they fixed it,” Mom whispered.
“No,” Alan said.
His voice sounded hollow.
“David’s finger was permanently crooked.”
Mom stared.
“No.”
Voss remained cautious.
“This is not proof of misidentification.”
“But it’s enough to check,” Shaw said.
“Yes.”
Alan stood at the window.
“What about dental records?”
“Requested.”
“DNA?”
“If exhumation becomes authorized.”
I looked at Voss.
“Do you think Dad is alive?”
Every part of me hated the question.
Hope could be crueler than grief.
Voss answered carefully.
“I have no evidence David survived that day.”
That was not the same as no.
“Then whose body did we bury?”
“We don’t know.”
Mom started crying harder.
Rebecca moved the photographs away from her.
For once, I felt no satisfaction in seeing Mom confronted.
This was too large.
If the body was not Dad, then someone else had died.
Someone had been dressed in Dad’s identity.
Someone had manipulated us at the worst moment of our lives.
Voss closed the folder.
“There is one more fact you need.”
I almost told her I had reached my limit for facts.
Instead I waited.
“David’s bank card was used six days after his funeral.”
Alan turned.
“Where?”
“A railway station.”
“By whom?”
“Camera footage was overwritten before anyone requested it.”
“Why wasn’t that investigated?”
“The transaction was classified as an automatic kiosk charge associated with travel booked before his death.”
“But it required the card?”
“Yes.”
“PIN?”
“Yes.”
Mom whispered, “Edric knew some of his passwords.”
“Did he know the PIN?”
“I don’t know.”
Voss removed a transaction record.
“The card was used again two weeks later.”
“Where?”
“A pharmacy.”
Then again.
A small grocery store.
Then nothing.
Three transactions after Dad was supposedly buried.
Chloe looked at me.
“Someone had his wallet.”
“Or Dad was alive,” I said.
The words hurt to say.
Voss did not encourage them.
“Both possibilities remain.”
Detective Shaw’s phone rang.
She answered.
While she listened, her eyes moved toward Voss.
“Yes. Send it.”
She ended the call.
“What?” Voss asked.
“Forensics recovered another file from Mercer’s flash drive.”
“A video?”
“Audio.”
“Who?”
Shaw looked at us.
“David.”
My entire body went still.
“When?”
“They’re analyzing metadata.”
“Play it.”
Rebecca hesitated.
I repeated myself.
“Play it.”
The recording crackled.
Then Dad’s voice emerged.
Weak.
Breathing hard.
But unmistakable.
“Naomi.”
Voss went pale.
Dad continued.
“If you get this, Mercer lied.”
A cough.
Background noise.
Then:
“Victor didn’t poison me.”
Mom covered her mouth.
Dad struggled for breath.
“Kane switched the medication.”
I felt Chloe’s fingers clamp around mine.
Dad’s voice continued.
“I’m alive. Don’t let them tell Brenda—”
Static swallowed several words.
Then:
“—girls aren’t safe if she knows.”
The recording ended.
Nobody moved.
Voss stared at the tablet.
Rebecca whispered, “Timestamp?”
Shaw looked at her phone.
Her face changed.
“The file was created nine days after David Morgan’s funeral.”
