Chapter 4 - THE MEMORY CARD
The memory card contained recordings, scanned documents, and several short videos.
Investigators copied its contents before allowing us to review anything. Claire insisted that we examine one particular recording first.
It showed a conference room.
Andrew sat at a table beside Vanessa. Both looked younger, but their faces were unmistakable.
A third person entered.
Detective Robert Harlan.
I watched the recording twice.
Andrew placed a folder on the table.
“The accounts don't match,” he said. “If these transfers are examined properly, all of us will have questions to answer.”
Vanessa leaned back.
“Then perhaps you should stop examining them.”
Andrew shook his head.
“I won't help you steal from my brother.”
Harlan closed the folder.
“Let's not make threats.”
“I'm not threatening anyone. I'm telling you the truth.”
The recording ended.
I sat in silence.
My brother had known something was wrong. Claire had tried to warn me. And I had dismissed both of them.
A second file showed an email exchange between Andrew and an unknown recipient. The messages suggested that Andrew had intended to cooperate with investigators shortly before the boating accident.
The final email had been sent the night before his reported death.
If anything happens to me, look at the insurance records and the identity confirmation.
I stared at the screen.
Andrew had carried a life insurance policy through his company. The beneficiary information had been changed shortly before the accident.
The file did not prove that he was alive or that his death had been staged. It did, however, raise questions serious enough to warrant a fresh investigation.
Claire watched me carefully.
“I didn't know whether Andrew survived,” she said. “I only knew that the official story didn't make sense.”
“Why didn't you send this evidence to someone?”
“I tried. Every time I contacted someone, Vanessa found out. I stopped trusting the people around her.”
I looked at Lily, who had fallen asleep in a chair beside her mother's bed.
“How did she know where to find you?”
Claire smiled faintly.
“I left her clues.”
She explained that Lily had occasionally visited the renovated estate with Vanessa. During one visit, Claire had managed to speak to her through a service corridor.
She told Lily where to find the brass key and warned her that she might need to use it if something went wrong.
“She's eight,” I whispered.
“I know. I never wanted to put that responsibility on her.”
Claire's eyes filled with tears.
“But she was the only person Vanessa didn't suspect.”
I took my daughter's small hand.
She had been carrying a secret no child should have needed to carry.
The next morning, federal investigators arrived to review the evidence. They confirmed that Harlan was being questioned and that the financial records would be examined independently.
Vanessa, meanwhile, had hired an attorney and denied holding Claire against her will.
Her lawyer claimed Claire had been invited to the property for a private discussion and had refused to leave.
The claim seemed absurd, but the investigators needed corroboration.
Then a technician discovered another file on the memory card.
It contained a photograph of Andrew taken several months after his supposed death.
He was standing outside a roadside motel in another state.
On the back of the digital image was a message:
He's alive. Ask who paid for the funeral.
I felt the room tilt.
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If Andrew had survived, why had he stayed away?
And why had someone gone to such lengths to convince us he was dead?
