Chapter 9 - The Letter Evelyn Hid
Evelyn Morgan lived in the same stone house where Daniel had grown up.
When he arrived, she was waiting at the dining table with a sealed envelope.
Daniel did not sit.
“Three years,” he said.
“I know.”
“You watched me marry Victoria.”
Evelyn lowered her eyes.
“I didn’t know they were the same woman.”
Daniel stopped.
“What?”
“Hannah only wrote ‘V. Reed.’ I never saw a photograph. When you introduced Victoria nearly a year later, I didn’t connect it.”
Daniel wanted to believe her.
That made him angrier.
He opened the envelope.
Hannah’s handwriting covered two pages.
She wrote that money was disappearing through foundation vendors. She believed someone inside Morgan Holdings was helping Mason Reed move funds. She had confronted Victoria once and been told to stop digging.
The final paragraph made Daniel sit down.
If anything happens to me, do not let Daniel dismiss it as bad luck. He trusts too easily when he loves someone.
A small brass key was taped beneath the signature.
“What does it open?” Rebecca asked.
Evelyn shook her head.
“I never knew.”
Then she reached into a drawer and placed an old receipt on the table.
A storage facility near the airport.
Unit 314.
Daniel stared at her.
“You kept this too?”
“I was afraid.”
“Of what?”
Evelyn’s voice broke.
“Of losing you after I had already lost Hannah.”
Daniel put the letter in his coat.
At the storage facility, the key opened a small metal unit.
Inside were two archive boxes, a locked laptop, and an external hard drive.
Rebecca found a folder labeled GARAGE.
It contained printed stills from security footage.
One showed Victoria entering the Morgan executive garage forty-eight hours before Hannah died.
Another showed Mason speaking with a mechanic beside Hannah’s SUV.
The last photograph was time-stamped twenty minutes later.
Mason was handing the mechanic an envelope.
Daniel’s phone rang.
Unknown number.
He answered.
A man whispered, “If you found Hannah’s storage unit, stop now.”
Daniel looked at Rebecca.
“Who is this?”
The man breathed heavily.
“Eddie Sloan.”
May you like
The mechanic from the garage.
Then he said, “I know what happened to her brakes.”
