Chapter 10 - The Night of the Crash
The police opened the warehouse doors before the smoke became dangerous.
It was not poisonous. Dominic had used it to frighten them and destroy evidence. By the time the fire suppression system activated, water had flooded the offices and ruined several paper records.
The letters and photograph survived because Nora had already sealed them in evidence bags.
The Vermont address led to a private rehabilitation center called North Lake House.
Catherine had been registered there under the name Claire Reed.
Richard arrived with federal agents and a medical advocate.
They found her room empty.
The bed was still warm.
A nurse claimed that Catherine’s legal guardian had removed her forty minutes earlier.
The guardian’s name was Daniel Reeve.
Security footage showed Reeve pushing Catherine through a rear exit. A dark van waited outside.
The driver wore a baseball cap.
When he turned toward the camera, Emily stopped the recording.
The driver was the same courier who had delivered the music box.
“He is working for Dominic,” Nora said.
“Or for Michael,” Emily replied.
The message inside the box had warned her not to trust the first person offering to help find him.
Someone wanted her to question every ally.
The investigators searched Catherine’s room.
Inside a drawer, they found a hospital identification bracelet bearing the date of Michael’s accident.
Catherine had been admitted to North Lake House that same night.
The medical notes described severe anxiety and confusion after witnessing a traumatic event.
“What event?” Richard asked.
The facility director refused to release further details without a court order.
Emily noticed a small drawing taped behind the bedside lamp.
Three birds flew above a black car.
Beneath them, a fourth bird sat inside a cage.
Michael had used the same bird symbol in the music box.
Catherine knew about the girls.
Perhaps Michael had told her.
Or perhaps she had seen him after the funeral.
The investigation into the crash was reopened.
Michael’s vehicle had left the main road shortly after midnight and struck a concrete barrier near the river. Fire destroyed most of the interior. Identification was made using a watch, dental evidence, and documents recovered by Daniel Reeve.
The police never collected an independent DNA sample before releasing the remains.
The watch belonged to Michael.
The dental evidence had been supplied by a clinic owned by a Hartwell subsidiary.
Daniel Reeve personally transported the body to his funeral home.
The original investigating officer retired two days later and moved overseas.
Every part of Michael’s death depended on people connected to Dominic.
A surviving traffic camera provided the first independent evidence.
At 11:46 p.m., Michael’s vehicle passed through an intersection three miles from the crash site.
Two people were visible in the front seats.
Michael was driving.
A second man sat beside him.
Nineteen minutes later, another camera captured the vehicle approaching the river.
The driver was no longer Michael.
The passenger seat appeared empty.
“What happened between those cameras?” Emily asked.
Nora displayed a map.
“There is only one place to stop without being recorded.”
Blackwater Pier.
Richard remembered the call.
Ask Richard about Blackwater Pier.
Investigators returned to the warehouse and searched the drainage channel behind it. They found fragments from Michael’s phone, a torn shirt, and blood on a piece of broken glass.
The blood belonged to Michael.
But the amount was not enough to prove he had died there.
Richard’s forensic accountant then uncovered a payment made six hours after the accident.
Five million dollars had moved from a Hartwell emergency account to a private aviation company.
A plane departed Boston before sunrise and landed in northern Canada.
The passenger record contained one name.
Matthew Reed.
Michael’s initials reversed.
“He escaped,” Richard said.
Emily wanted to believe it.
But Nora remained cautious.
“Someone purchased a flight under a false name. We cannot prove Michael was on it.”
The aviation company provided archived hangar footage.
A man wearing Michael’s coat boarded the plane with assistance from another person. His face remained hidden beneath a hood.
Just before entering the cabin, he looked back.
Emily paused the video.
The man’s left hand was visible.
Michael had broken his little finger in college. It had never healed straight.
The man in the footage had the same crooked finger.
Emily covered her mouth.
“He survived.”
Richard looked at the departure time.
“If Michael boarded that plane, he was alive after the crash.”
“Then why did he abandon us?”
Before Richard could answer, Lily appeared in the doorway.
She had heard everything.
“Daddy did not abandon us,” she said.
Emily turned.
May you like
Lily was holding a small pink recording device.
“He told me to pretend he was dead.”
