Chapter 6 - The Impossible Message
For several seconds, I couldn't speak.
Then I pushed the photograph away.
"My father is dead."
Richard nodded.
"I know."
"I buried him."
"I was there."
"Then don't ever say something like that again."
Richard raised both hands.
"I'm not saying Arthur is alive."
I stared at him.
"Then what are you saying?"
He opened his phone.
"Yesterday, I received an email from an account your father created before he died."
Miriam leaned forward.
"An automated message?"
"Possibly."
Richard showed us the screen.
The subject line read:
If Claire finally takes her seat.
My throat tightened.
Inside was a short message.
Richard, if this message has been delivered, the conditions I feared have probably occurred.
Give my daughter the complete Northbridge file.
Tell her I was wrong about one thing.
The danger wasn't outside the family.
I read the final sentence three times.
"Who sent it?"
Richard shook his head.
"I don't know."
Miriam examined the email headers.
"We'll need a forensic specialist."
I sat down slowly.
My father had spent his life preparing for disasters.
He believed in backups.
Contingency plans.
Redundant systems.
He used to say that a good engineer never assumed the first solution would work.
Perhaps he had prepared one final contingency.
For me.
My phone rang.
Daniel.
I rejected the call.
A message appeared.
You need to stop before somebody gets hurt.
I showed Miriam.
She photographed it.
"Don't respond."
Another message arrived.
Vanessa knows things about your father that you don't.
Then another.
Meet me alone tonight.
I typed a response.
All communication goes through my attorney.
Daniel called immediately.
I blocked the number.
Richard watched me.
"Your father would be proud."
I looked at him.
"Don't."
He lowered his head.
"Claire—"
"My father trusted you."
"I know."
"He trusted Daniel."
Richard said nothing.
"And he trusted people who stood by while his daughter was deceived."
Tears burned behind my eyes.
"I don't need another person telling me what Dad would have wanted."
I picked up the photograph of Martin Hale.
"I need the truth."
That afternoon, Miriam's investigator confirmed that Martin had been living under a different name.
He had suffered a stroke four years earlier.
He rarely accepted visitors.
But when the investigator mentioned my name, Martin began crying.
Then he wrote five words on a piece of paper.
Tell Claire about the bridge.
I stared at the photograph of his handwriting.
"What bridge?"
Nobody knew.
At 6:10 p.m., an email arrived from Vanessa's attorney.
It accused me of creating a hostile work environment.
It threatened litigation.
And it demanded that I withdraw the audit.
Attached was a photograph.
Daniel and Vanessa standing together outside a courthouse.
Beneath it was a caption.
Our future starts now.
I forwarded it to Miriam.
Then I opened the second attachment.
It was a document bearing my signature.
A signature I had never written.
May you like
According to the document, I had supposedly agreed to surrender my voting rights.
And it was dated the day after my father's funeral.
