Chapter 8 - Northbound.
By sunrise, freezing rain had replaced the snow over Boston.
Claire sat in Rebecca's kitchen wearing borrowed clothes and holding a cup of coffee she had forgotten to drink.
She had spent the last three hours repeating the new message in her mind.
You burned the wrong copy.
Someone else knew about Richard's letter.
Someone else knew the box had been destroyed.
At eight twenty, Detective Cole called.
The message had come from a prepaid number that was already disconnected.
The phone from Claire's closet had been registered under a false name.
Its location history, however, showed repeated trips to Margaret's lake house and the Bennett Foundation office.
One location appeared more than any other.
A repair garage in Concord, New Hampshire.
The garage belonged to Peter Walsh, the Bennett family's former groundskeeper.
Claire remembered him as a quiet man with enormous hands who had worked at the lake property for almost fifteen years.
Margaret had fired him shortly after Richard's death.
Claire had never known why.
Cole told her New Hampshire investigators were trying to locate him.
Then he asked whether she would identify several items recovered from the lake house.
By late morning, Claire and Rebecca were driving north behind an unmarked state police vehicle.
The trip felt unreal.
Christmas songs played softly on the radio until Rebecca turned them off.
"I should have said something years ago," Rebecca whispered.
Claire looked out at the grey highway.
"So should I."
Rebecca shook her head.
"He was your husband."
"And she was your mother."
Neither woman said anything after that.
The lake house stood at the edge of a frozen expanse of water, beautiful in the cruel way expensive things often were.
Police tape crossed the cellar entrance.
The outdoor fire pit was black against the snow.
Claire recognized the brass corner recovered from the ashes immediately.
It matched the old steel box.
Inside the cellar, the forced cabinet door hung open.
A state investigator showed Claire scrape marks on the floor.
The box had been dragged toward the outside door.
Then he pointed to a second set of marks leading behind a wine rack.
The rack had been moved recently.
Behind it was a narrow recess in the stone wall.
Inside the recess sat a small waterproof envelope.
Margaret had either missed it or never known it existed.
The investigator opened it carefully.
There was no letter.
There was a memory card.
Rebecca whispered, "Dad used those in his camera."
Claire remembered Richard carrying a compact digital recorder at foundation meetings because he hated handwritten minutes.
The card was taken upstairs and placed into an evidence reader.
There were twelve audio files.
Eleven were ordinary board meetings.
The twelfth had no title.
Its timestamp was the night Richard died.
Cole arrived before they played it.
Everyone stood around a dining table that had not been used since summer.
The recording began with wind.
Then Richard's voice.
"If you transfer one more dollar, I go to the board."
Daniel answered.
His voice was unmistakable.
"You don't understand what happens if you do that."
Richard cursed at him.
A chair scraped.
Something shattered.
Then Daniel shouted.
"You always choose the foundation over your own family!"
A heavy impact followed.
Rebecca grabbed Claire's hand.
For eight seconds, there was only wind.
Then Richard coughed.
He was alive.
Daniel said something too distant to hear.
A door slammed.
Footsteps faded.
The recording continued for nearly four minutes.
Richard was breathing.
Then a car approached.
Another door opened.
A woman's heels struck the wooden floor.
Margaret's voice came through clear and close.
"Richard?"
Richard answered weakly.
"You knew what he was doing."
Margaret said nothing for several seconds.
Then Richard spoke again.
"I'm calling the police."
A new sound followed.
Paper tearing.
Richard shouted, "Give that back."
There was a struggle.
Then the audio filled with rushing wind and a terrible splash.
Rebecca screamed.
Claire stared at the speaker.
Margaret's voice came one final time.
Soft.
Horrified.
May you like
"Richard?"
Then the recording ended.
