Chapter 4: The Last Email
I didn't open the envelope in the café.
Frank didn't push me to.
He drank his coffee.
Lindsey finished his pie and most of mine.
At some point the waitress refilled Frank's cup without being asked, and he thanked her by name — he'd read her badge — and she smiled like that didn't happen often.
We didn't speak again about Gerald Marsh or the envelope or the accident.
Not with Lindsey sitting between us, his feet swinging under the chair, asking Frank whether he had ever seen a real police dog.
"Three," Frank said.
"One of them bit my shoe."
"Did it come off?"
"The shoe or the dog?"
Lindsey laughed.
It was the kind of laugh that fills a room and then leaves it feeling emptier when it stops.
Frank looked at me over Lindsey's head, and something passed between us that didn't need words.
We walked out together an hour later.
Frank crouched down on the pavement and told Lindsey he would like to visit again, if that was all right.
Lindsey considered this seriously.
"Do you like board games?"
"I used to beat your father at chess every Sunday."
"He let you," Lindsey said, and walked to the car.
Frank straightened up slowly.
"He's remarkable."
"He is," I said.
"He also isn't wrong about the chess."
Frank smiled for the first time.
Then it faded.
"Read the email tonight.
After he's in bed.
Then call me."
I called him at nine-fifteen.
I had read the email four times by then.
I was sitting at the kitchen table with the single lamp on and the rest of the house dark and quiet.
"He knew," I said when Frank picked up.
"Daniel knew Gerald was going to move against him."
"Yes."
"He says in this email that Gerald threatened him.
That Gerald told him if he went to the authorities, he would make sure Daniel lost everything — the firm, the house, his reputation." My voice stayed steady.
I had cried earlier, alone, before I called.
"He says Gerald told him, 'Accidents happen to people who don't know when to stay quiet.'"
The line was silent for a moment.
"Eleanor," Frank said.
"The police have a copy of that email.
They've had it for four months.
It came from Daniel's backup server — one Gerald didn't know existed."
"Then why is Gerald still—"
"He wasn't, until today.
He'd been out of the country.
He came back last week." Frank paused.
"A detective named Solis contacted me two months ago.
She asked if I would be willing to make a statement.
About what Daniel told me.
About the conversation I had with him the week before he d*ed."
"And?"
"I said yes." His voice dropped.
"It's the only useful thing I've done since I lost him."
I pressed my hand flat on the table.
The envelope was still there, smoothed open now, Daniel's words in his own handwriting on the screen of my phone.
*Dad, if something happens — make sure Eleanor knows the truth.
She'll know what to do with it.*
"He trusted me," I said.
"He wrote that and I never even knew."
"He knew you," Frank said simply.
I looked toward the hallway.
Lindsey's bedroom door was half-open, the small nightlight casting its pale arc across the floor.
"What happens now?" I asked.
"Detective Solis wants to meet with you," Frank said.
"She says there's something else.
Something she hasn't been able to share until Gerald was in custody."
The lamp flickered once.
Or maybe I imagined it.
"What kind of something?" I said.
"She wouldn't tell me," Frank said.
May you like
"She said it had to come from her.
Directly to you."
