Chapter 17 - The Passenger
The driver's name was Naomi Bell.
She had worked for my family for nine years, then disappeared from our records two days after Evelyn died.
I thought she had resigned.
She had been paid $250,000 through Northline and forced to sign a confidentiality agreement.
"Who was in the car?" I asked.
Naomi's voice shook over the call.
"Stephen Cross."
My throat closed.
She said Evelyn asked Naomi to drive her to a meeting. Stephen entered the car near Oak Street, claiming he wanted to talk privately. Twenty minutes later, he told Naomi to pull over and switch vehicles because "Mrs. Blackwell needed family privacy."
Naomi obeyed.
Evelyn drove away with Stephen in the passenger seat.
The crash happened thirty-two minutes later.
Stephen claimed he had been downtown all evening.
"How did he survive?" June asked.
Naomi answered, "He got out before the crash. Traffic camera caught him near Belmont. Victor had the footage removed."
The pieces locked together.
Stephen had been in the car long enough to know whether the brake pedal was failing.
Long enough to make the damage worse.
Long enough to leave Evelyn alone with a car he knew could kill her.
Police reopened the case as a homicide investigation.
Victor agreed to cooperate.
Stephen, already in custody for kidnapping June's children, demanded a lawyer and stopped talking.
But his emails talked for him.
One line to Victor, sent forty minutes after Evelyn's crash, read:
Problem solved. Keep Marcus grieving, not digging.
I read it three times.
June stood beside me.
"You okay?"
"No."
It was the first honest answer I had given anyone in years.
She nodded. "Good."
I looked at her.
"Good?"
"People like you are always expected to be okay because money can fix the room around you. Sometimes the room isn't the problem."
I almost smiled.
Then Nolan entered with another file.
"We found the full employee list tied to Harbor."
He placed it on the table.
The theft went back twelve years.
At the top of the earliest page was an employee identification number.
Mine.
I stared at it.
"Why am I on the list?"
May you like
Nolan looked uneasy.
"Because your father used your compensation account as the original test case."
