Chapter 10: What He Deserved to Know
The call from Patricia came on a Thursday afternoon, three weeks later.
I asked Jace to come sit with me in the kitchen.
Daniel came in from the other room and stood by the counter.
Josie was at a neighbor's house — I'd arranged that deliberately.
"The DA's office has formally charged Gerald Foss," I said.
"Obstruction of justice for what he did to Donna.
And they've reopened the investigation into your mother's death as a potential wrongful death case.
The toxicology report has been re-examined by an independent lab."
Jace sat very still.
"And?"
"The results were not consistent with a natural illness," I said carefully.
"There were substances present that shouldn't have been there.
The original report was altered before it was archived.
The health official who signed off on closing the case has also been referred for investigation."
The kitchen was quiet.
"So she didn't just get sick," Jace said.
"The investigation is still ongoing.
Nothing is final yet.
But—" I paused.
"No.
It doesn't look like she just got sick."
He looked at the table.
His hands were flat on the surface, very still.
"She was trying to protect us," he said.
It wasn't a question.
"Roy believes so.
From what he told us, she had found out something Foss had done — something that put her in a position where she felt she had to act.
And when she did—" I stopped.
"She paid for it," Jace said quietly.
"Yes."
He didn't cry.
He sat with it the way he seemed to sit with everything — quietly, internally, processing it somewhere deep and private.
Then he looked up at me.
"She would have gotten us out eventually," he said.
"She was working toward it.
She had the job, the apartment." His voice was steady.
"She was almost there."
"I know," I said.
"Roy told us that too."
"And then he took that from her." His voice didn't rise.
It stayed level.
"And he took three years from us."
Daniel set a hand on Jace's shoulder.
Jace didn't pull away.
"What happens to him now?" Jace asked.
"The obstruction charge is already filed.
The wrongful death investigation could take time — these things do.
But Patricia says the evidence is strong.
The altered report, the sign-off, Roy's witness record, the lab results." I paused.
"He's not going to be able to sell that property and disappear.
That's done."
Jace nodded slowly.
Then he said something I hadn't expected.
"Can I see the journal entry?
The one your sister wrote about us?"
I looked at him.
"Yes," I said.
"Of course."
I got up and went to the bedroom.
The journal was in the drawer of my nightstand, where it had been for four years.
I carried it back to the kitchen and set it in front of him, already open to the page.
He read it slowly.
I watched his face while he did — the careful, controlled face of a boy who had learned not to show too much, softening in a way I hadn't seen before.
When he finished, he closed the journal gently and pushed it back toward me.
"She saw it," he said.
"In one afternoon, she saw it."
"She did," I said.
He looked at me.
"Do you think she knew?
That we'd end up here?"
"No," I said honestly.
"But I think she would have wanted this.
More than almost anything."
May you like
Jace was quiet for a moment.
Then, very softly: "Me too."
