Chapter 16 - The Father Lucy Didn’t Know
The evidence against Vanessa was growing.
Lucy should have felt relieved.
Instead she became angrier at Daniel.
It happened quietly.
She stopped mentioning him.
Stopped wearing his jacket.
Stopped asking Margaret to tell stories about when he was young.
One night Margaret found Lucy sitting on the floor beside the suitcase.
“What are you doing?”
“Looking.”
“For what?”
“I don’t know.”
Margaret sat beside her.
Lucy held the folded paper.
“Dad knew.”
“He suspected.”
“He knew enough.”
“Yes.”
“He knew Vanessa was lying.”
“Yes.”
“He knew she might hurt us.”
Margaret understood where this was going.
“And he still died without telling me.”
Margaret looked down.
Lucy’s voice broke.
“He made me do it.”
“Lucy—”
“He made me call Elias.”
“You did nothing wrong.”
“I shouldn’t have had to.”
Margaret had no defense.
So she gave none.
“No,” she said.
“You shouldn’t have.”
Lucy looked at her.
“Everyone keeps saying Dad protected me.”
Margaret’s eyes filled.
“He tried.”
“That’s not the same.”
“No.”
The honesty made Lucy cry harder.
Margaret wrapped an arm around her.
“Your father loved you more than anything.”
“Then why did he give me a job?”
Because that was what it had been.
Not merely a secret.
A responsibility.
Margaret thought of Daniel as a boy.
Always fixing what everyone else had broken.
Always believing he had to solve problems alone.
“He was afraid,” she said.
“Dad wasn’t afraid.”
“Oh, sweetheart. Your father was afraid of many things.”
Lucy looked up.
“He was afraid of disappointing people. Afraid of asking for help. Afraid that if he admitted he made a terrible mistake about Vanessa, everyone would know he wasn’t as smart as he wanted to appear.”
Lucy sniffed.
“That’s stupid.”
“Yes.”
Margaret almost smiled.
“Adults can be remarkably stupid.”
The next day Elias asked Lucy if she wanted to visit Daniel’s grave.
She almost said no.
Then agreed.
They stood beneath a gray November sky.
Lucy placed a small orange Halloween pumpkin beside the headstone.
“You’re mad at him,” Elias said.
“Yes.”
“Good.”
Lucy looked at him.
“You’re allowed.”
“Are you?”
“Yes.”
“Still?”
Elias stared at Daniel’s name.
“Especially now.”
Lucy waited.
Elias spoke quietly.
“When Daniel called me to apologize, I almost hung up.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“Because his voice sounded scared.”
“He made you promise to help me.”
“Yes.”
“Did you tell him not to make me carry the number?”
Elias went still.
Lucy saw the answer.
“You did.”
“Yes.”
“What did he say?”
“He said Vanessa checked Margaret’s things sometimes.”
Margaret’s face hardened.
Elias continued.
“He believed you were the only person Vanessa would not suspect of carrying information.”
Lucy stared at the headstone.
“So Dad used me because I was a kid.”
“He trusted you because you were his daughter.”
“That sounds nicer.”
“Yes.”
“But it’s the same thing.”
Elias looked at her.
“You’re right.”
Lucy’s chin trembled.
“I hate that everyone keeps making him perfect because he died.”
Elias nodded.
“Daniel wasn’t perfect.”
“Was he good?”
“Yes.”
“How do you know?”
“Because when he finally understood what he had done to me, he apologized without asking me to forgive him.”
Lucy looked at Elias.
“Did you?”
“Eventually.”
“Why?”
“Because forgiving someone does not mean pretending they were right.”
Lucy stared at the pumpkin.
After several minutes she whispered, “Dad was wrong.”
“Yes.”
“He should have told Grandma.”
“Yes.”
“He should have told Rachel.”
“Yes.”
“He shouldn’t have made me keep the paper.”
Elias swallowed.
“Yes.”
Lucy touched Daniel’s headstone.
“But I’m glad he gave it to me.”
Elias looked away to hide his tears.
That evening Rachel called.
The off-site archive had produced its biggest discovery yet.
Vanessa had accessed a draft of Daniel’s old will.
She had copied it.
Edited it.
And printed the altered version from the Mercer house.
The printer metadata remained in the archived system logs.
The document that supposedly represented Daniel’s final wishes had been created on Vanessa’s laptop.
Not Daniel’s.
And the timestamp was six hours after hospital records showed Daniel had become too sedated to communicate.
Rachel said quietly, “We can prove where the will came from.”
Margaret closed her eyes.
Lucy looked at Daniel’s folded paper.
Her father had been wrong to put so much on her.
But one thing he had understood perfectly.
Vanessa had believed being underestimated made her safe.
May you like
Now that mistake was destroying her.
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