I thought I had misunderstood him.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy father?\u201d<\/p>\n
Daniel nodded.<\/p>\n
\u201cMatthew discovered that your father had connections to Victor.\u201d<\/p>\n
I shook my head.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy father died years ago.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI know.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHe never met Victor.\u201d<\/p>\n
Daniel looked at Henry.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat's what Matthew believed too.\u201d<\/p>\n
I turned toward Henry.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat does that mean?\u201d<\/p>\n
Henry looked exhausted.<\/p>\n
\u201cMatthew investigated your family after he found Victor's financial records.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause your name appeared in one of the files.\u201d<\/p>\n
My throat tightened.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy name?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n
Daniel explained that Matthew had initially believed the name belonged to someone else.<\/p>\n
Then he discovered the connection.<\/p>\n
A transfer had been made through an account associated with my father's old business.<\/p>\n
I remembered almost nothing about that business.<\/p>\n
My father had owned a small construction company before retiring.<\/p>\n
It had closed years before I met Matthew.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou're saying my father was involved?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo,\u201d Daniel said. \u201cNot necessarily.\u201d<\/p>\n
That qualification mattered.<\/p>\n
\u201cThen why was his account there?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause Victor used old accounts to move money.\u201d<\/p>\n
I looked at Henry.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd Matthew found this?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy didn't he tell me?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHe wanted to know whether your father had been involved before accusing him.\u201d<\/p>\n
I sat down.<\/p>\n
My entire understanding of my family seemed to be shifting.<\/p>\n
I had spent years thinking Matthew's investigation had been about his own family.<\/p>\n
Now I learned my family name was buried in the same records.<\/p>\n
Daniel placed another document on the table.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is the account history.\u201d<\/p>\n
I looked at the dates.<\/p>\n
One transaction had happened shortly before my father died.<\/p>\n
Another occurred years later.<\/p>\n
The second transfer was made through an account that had supposedly been closed.<\/p>\n
I stared at it.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat isn't possible.\u201d<\/p>\n
Daniel said, \u201cThat's what Matthew thought.\u201d<\/p>\n
Henry leaned closer.<\/p>\n
\u201cMaybe the account wasn't closed.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n
\u201cHow do you know?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cMy father showed me the closure papers.\u201d<\/p>\n
Daniel looked at me.<\/p>\n
\u201cDo you still have them?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI don't know.\u201d<\/p>\n
Henry said, \u201cWe should find them.\u201d<\/p>\n
The officer interrupted.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou need to understand that financial records alone don't establish criminal responsibility.\u201d<\/p>\n
I nodded.<\/p>\n
But I could not stop thinking about my father.<\/p>\n
If someone had used his identity after his death, who had access to his information?<\/p>\n
Victor?<\/p>\n
Daniel?<\/p>\n
Matthew?<\/p>\n
Or someone else?<\/p>\n
We returned home that evening.<\/p>\n
Eleanor was waiting.<\/p>\n
The moment she saw my face, she knew something had changed.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat happened?\u201d<\/p>\n
I placed the account statement on the table.<\/p>\n
\u201cDid you know?\u201d<\/p>\n
She looked at it.<\/p>\n
Then sat down.<\/p>\n
\u201cAbout your father?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n
Her silence answered me.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou knew.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI knew Matthew had questions.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cQuestions about my father?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy didn't you tell me?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause Matthew asked me not to.\u201d<\/p>\n
I closed my eyes.<\/p>\n
\u201cEveryone keeps using his name.\u201d<\/p>\n
Eleanor began crying.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe wanted to protect you.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI understand that.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo, you don't.\u201d<\/p>\n
She looked at me.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was terrified that you would discover something about your family and blame yourself.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy would I blame myself?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause that's what you did after his death.\u201d<\/p>\n
I went quiet.<\/p>\n
She was right.<\/p>\n
I had blamed myself for everything.<\/p>\n
For the last conversation.<\/p>\n
For not insisting he stay home.<\/p>\n
For surviving.<\/p>\n
Perhaps Matthew had known me better than I knew myself.<\/p>\n
But that did not make the secrets easier to accept.<\/p>\n
I asked Eleanor what she knew about my father.<\/p>\n
She said Matthew had once visited her with documents.<\/p>\n
He had asked whether she knew of any connection between our families.<\/p>\n
She didn't.<\/p>\n
But later, she remembered something.<\/p>\n
Years before Matthew met me, my father had visited their family business.<\/p>\n
That was the first connection.<\/p>\n
I felt a chill.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI don't know.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cDid he meet Matthew's father?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cDid they know each other?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI think so.\u201d<\/p>\n
The room fell silent.<\/p>\n
Suddenly, my childhood memories began appearing differently.<\/p>\n
My father had always been secretive about business.<\/p>\n
He never discussed clients.<\/p>\n
He never spoke about certain men.<\/p>\n
Whenever I asked why he had stopped working, he said he was tired.<\/p>\n
Nothing more.<\/p>\n
I had never questioned it.<\/p>\n
Now I wondered whether I should have.<\/p>\n
Henry touched the table.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe need to find your father's papers.\u201d<\/p>\n
I nodded.<\/p>\n
The next morning, we went through boxes stored in the attic.<\/p>\n
Receipts.<\/p>\n
Tax documents.<\/p>\n
Old photographs.<\/p>\n
Letters.<\/p>\n
Then I found a folder labeled with a date from twenty years earlier.<\/p>\n
Inside was a contract.<\/p>\n
My father's company had done work for a business owned by Victor's family.<\/p>\n
I stared at the signature.<\/p>\n
My father's.<\/p>\n
But something was wrong.<\/p>\n
The contract was dated after the company had supposedly stopped operating.<\/p>\n
I showed Henry.<\/p>\n
He frowned.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis could be forged.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThen why was it in my father's files?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSomeone may have planted it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Daniel arrived an hour later.<\/p>\n
When he saw the document, he went pale.<\/p>\n
\u201cI've seen this.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhere?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIn Matthew's files.\u201d<\/p>\n
I stared at him.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause he was trying to prove that the old company accounts had been reopened.\u201d<\/p>\n
I sat down.<\/p>\n
Daniel continued.<\/p>\n
\u201cMatthew believed someone had been using your father's identity.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cVictor?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cPossibly.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThen why was Matthew killed?\u201d<\/p>\n
Daniel looked at me.<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause he was close to proving who.\u201d<\/p>\n
The answer frightened me.<\/p>\n
We returned to the police with the documents.<\/p>\n
They opened an investigation into the financial records.<\/p>\n
That should have made me feel safer.<\/p>\n
Instead, I felt exposed.<\/p>\n
That evening, Henry received a phone call.<\/p>\n
He answered.<\/p>\n
His face changed.<\/p>\n
He handed me the phone.<\/p>\n
A man's voice said, \u201cYou should have left this alone.\u201d<\/p>\n
I recognized him.<\/p>\n
Victor.<\/p>\n
My fingers tightened around the phone.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy did you kill my husband?\u201d<\/p>\n
There was silence.<\/p>\n
Then he laughed softly.<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn't.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThen who did?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou already know.\u201d<\/p>\n
The line went dead.<\/p>\n
I looked at Henry.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat does that mean?\u201d<\/p>\n
He didn't answer.<\/p>\n
A moment later, another message arrived.<\/p>\n
It contained a photograph.<\/p>\n
My father.<\/p>\n
Victor.<\/p>\n
And Matthew.<\/p>\n
All three were standing outside the same building.<\/p>\n
The photograph was dated fifteen years earlier.<\/p>\n
I stared at it.<\/p>\n
Matthew had never told me he had met Victor before our marriage.<\/p>\n
And my father had never told me he knew him.<\/p>\n
The image had one more detail.<\/p>\n
Someone had written on the back:<\/p>\n
Ask Henry what happened after this picture was taken.<\/p>\n
I slowly turned toward my husband.<\/p>\n
He looked at the photograph.<\/p>\n
Then closed his eyes.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou knew.\u201d<\/p>\n
I thought I had misunderstood him. \u201cMy father?\u201d Daniel nodded. \u201cMatthew discovered that your father had connections to Victor.\u201d I shook my head. \u201cMy father died years ago.\u201d \u201cI know.\u201d … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6682,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6692","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-insightdrama"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6692","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6692"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6692\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6708,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6692\/revisions\/6708"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6682"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6692"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6692"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6692"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}