Chapter 8: The Drive
Solis came back on Saturday morning.
Frank was already at the house.
He had taken to coming by in the mornings, ostensibly to help with Lindsey, but really, I understood, because he didn't know what to do with himself when he was alone.
Grief does that.
It makes the empty rooms too loud.
Lindsey was in the garden when Solis arrived, crouched over something in the flower bed — a beetle, he informed us seriously, that was "probably lost."
Solis sat at the kitchen table with a laptop and a folder thicker than the one she'd brought before.
"The drive contained four years of financial records," she said.
"Transactions, internal memos, email threads between Daniel and Gerald going back to the beginning of the fr@ud.
Daniel had been documenting everything from the moment he first suspected." She turned the laptop so we could see the screen.
A spreadsheet.
Columns of numbers, dates, account names.
"He was building a case.
He had enough here to put Gerald away without anything else."
Frank leaned forward.
"Why didn't he go to the authorities sooner?"
"He was going to." Solis turned the laptop back.
"There are emails on this drive to a securities attorney.
The last one is dated four days before the accident.
Daniel had an appointment scheduled for the following Monday."
The following Monday.
He never made it to the following Monday.
"There's something else," Solis said.
She opened the folder and removed a single printed page.
"Among Daniel's files, there was a document.
A letter, drafted but never sent.
Addressed to you, Mrs.
Hartwell."
She placed it on the table in front of me.
I recognized Daniel's handwriting immediately.
The careful, slightly cramped letters.
The way he always left too much space between paragraphs, as if each thought needed room to breathe.
*Eleanor — if you're reading this, then something went wrong and I ran out of time to fix it.
I need you to know that what happened was not an accident.
I need you to know that I tried.
And I need you to know that I trusted you with Lindsey because you were the strongest person I knew, and he needs strong.*
I stopped reading.
I folded the letter along its crease and held it in both hands.
Frank was looking at the window.
"He knew," I said.
"He knew something might happen to him."
"Yes," Solis said.
"And he left the drive where I would find it."
"He left it where someone who loved him would eventually look," she said.
"He couldn't know it would be you.
But I think he hoped."
I set the letter down.
I smoothed it flat with my palm.
"What happens to Gerald now?" I said.
"The DA is adding charges.
Given the contents of the drive, and the witness statements we now have — including Frank's — we're looking at securities fr@ud, wire fr@ud, and obstruction." She paused.
"The second investigation — the accident — is still ongoing.
The drive contains a record of Gerald's threat to Daniel.
That goes to intent.
It won't be enough on its own, but combined with the physical evidence from the accident scene, the phone records, the toll data—" She stopped.
"I want to be honest with you.
A charge of that severity is harder to prove.
Gerald's attorney is skilled.
It may take time."
"I have time," I said.
Solis looked at me.
"Yes," she said.
"I believe you do."
After she left, Frank and I sat at the table without speaking for a while.
Outside, Lindsey had apparently resolved the beetle situation and moved on to something involving a stick and the garden wall.
"He wrote to you," Frank said finally.
"Not to me."
"He knew you'd blame yourself," I said.
"He didn't want that."
Frank pressed his lips together.
His eyes were bright.
"He was right," he said.
"He usually was," I said.
"About most things."
Frank looked out at the garden.
Lindsey had climbed up to sit on the low wall, the stick across his knees, surveying his territory with complete satisfaction.
"What do we do now?" Frank said.
"We wait for the law to do its work," I said.
"And in the meantime—" I stood up and moved to put the kettle on.
"You're going to teach that boy chess.
Properly.
So he stops letting people win on purpose."
Frank made a sound that was almost a laugh.
"He does that?"
May you like
"He's been doing it to me for six months," I said.
"I only just realized."
