Chapter 3: The Man Who Was Never on Our Side
Tobias stared at the message for three full seconds without moving.
"Give me the phone," I said.
"Rosalind—"
"Give it to me."
He handed it over.
I read the message again.
*She's still alive.
I saw them under the pier.
What do you want me to do?*
The number had no name attached.
Just eleven digits and a timestamp from four minutes ago.
"Who has this number?" I asked.
"I don't know yet." Tobias took the phone back and typed a reply.
He kept it simple.
*Confirmed.
Stand by.*
"What are you doing?"
"Buying us time." He slid the phone into his pocket.
"Whoever sent that is waiting for instructions.
If they don't get a response that sounds like Garrett, they'll move.
We need to be gone before that happens."
The concrete pillar was cold against my back.
My clothes were still soaked through.
I could hear traffic above us on the coastal road — ordinary people driving somewhere ordinary, with no idea that a woman was crouching beneath their feet trying to understand how her entire life had been constructed as a trap.
"Tell me everything," I said.
"From the beginning.
No more waiting."
Tobias leaned against the opposite pillar and looked at me the way he used to when we were children and he was about to say something that would change the shape of a day.
"When Mom and Dad went off that bridge fifteen years ago," he said, "the police called it a brake failure.
You accepted that.
I couldn't."
"You were seventeen."
"I was seventeen and I had already found the mechanic's report that said the brakes had been deliberately compromised." He said it without drama, the way people say things they have rehearsed alone for years.
"I didn't go to the police because the mechanic who wrote that report disappeared two days after filing it.
I understood what that meant."
My throat tightened.
"So you faked the injury."
"I needed them to think I was no threat.
A paralyzed man in a wheelchair doesn't investigate anything.
Doesn't ask questions.
Doesn't become a problem." He paused.
"It also kept me close to you.
Close enough to watch who came into your life."
"Garrett."
"Garrett." The name landed flat between us.
"He approached you eight months after the funeral.
I watched him do it.
I watched him study you first — your routines, your vulnerabilities, the way you responded to gentleness because you'd just lost the two people who had always been gentle with you." Tobias's jaw tightened.
"He knew exactly what he was doing."
I pressed my palms against my knees to stop them from shaking.
"The warm milk," I said.
"How long have you known?"
"Six weeks.
I found the compound listed in a forwarded email from a private laboratory.
The address on the invoice was a shell company registered in Delaware, but the billing contact was Garrett's personal accountant." He touched the waterproof case inside his jacket.
"I've had the medical report since then.
I was building the full picture before I came to you.
I needed more than one document."
"You should have told me the moment you found it."
"I know." He didn't argue.
"I was wrong about the timing.
I thought I had more of it."
The phone in his pocket buzzed again.
We both went still.
He pulled it out.
Another message from the same number.
*Garrett isn't responding to my calls.
What's happening?
Should I come to you?*
Tobias and I looked at each other.
"They're getting nervous," I said.
"Which means Garrett is already moving." He stood up straighter.
"We can't stay here.
There's a man I trust — a former investigator who helped me verify the brake report years ago.
He's in Savannah.
We need to reach him before Garrett realizes the body count is wrong."
I stood up from the concrete.
My legs held.
"One more thing," I said.
"The person who sent that message.
You said you don't know who it is.
But you have a guess."
Tobias was quiet for a moment too long.
"Tell me," I said.
He looked at the water still dripping from my sleeve.
"The writing style," he said carefully.
"The phrasing.
*She's still alive.* Not *they're still alive.* They knew you were the target.
They knew Tobias was secondary." He met my eyes.
"Only someone who had been told the plan in detail would phrase it that way."
"Who knew the plan in detail?"
"Garrett.
Penelope." He stopped.
"And one other person."
"Who?"
"Our family attorney," Tobias said.
"Martin Hale.
He's been handling the shipyard trust documents for twenty-two years.
He was the one who drafted the new inheritance paperwork Garrett filed two months ago." He paused.
"He was also the one who recommended Garrett to you as a financial advisor.
Three years ago.
Before you ever started dating."
The cold that moved through me had nothing to do with the river.
Martin Hale had sat across from me at my parents' funeral.
He had held my hand.
He had said, *Your mother and father would be so proud of how strong you are.*
"We need to go," Tobias said quietly.
"Right now."
He was already moving toward the far end of the maintenance gap, where a rusted ladder led up to a service path above the waterline.
I followed him.
May you like
But I kept thinking about Martin Hale's hand over mine.
And the way he had smiled.
