Chapter 8
I moved Rosie to a safe apartment before sunrise.
Laura came with us.
So did my neighbor, Mrs. Alvarez, who had watched Rosie since she was a baby.
She brought soup, blankets, and a baseball bat.
I almost smiled.
Almost.
Detective Reed placed a patrol outside.
My father called twenty-three times.
Bethany posted online.
My unstable brother is exploiting his daughter for attention after assaulting me.
Comments appeared fast.
People who had never held Rosie.
Never heard her cry.
Never knew Elena.
All judging.
I turned off my phone.
Detective Reed did not.
She traced the brick note to security footage near my house.
A man in a dark hoodie.
Tall.
Limp in his left leg.
Laura gasped when she saw the still frame.
“That’s Uncle Victor.”
My father’s younger brother.
The one who disappeared from family gatherings after Elena died.
I had been told he moved to Florida.
Another lie.
Victor had worked security for Dad’s company for years.
He knew cameras.
Locks.
Pressure.
Reed found him through toll records.
He had been near Elena’s crash site the night she died.
My blood went cold.
Then Laura remembered something else.
“Bethany called him after dinner.”
“How do you know?”
“She was crying in the bathroom. I heard her say, ‘He found the envelope.’”
Reed got a warrant for Bethany’s phone.
Deleted calls.
Recovered messages.
One from Victor.
If Mark opens the blue letter, we all burn.
I thought of the envelope.
For Rosie when she asks why I’m gone.
I had not opened it.
But maybe Elena hid more than a letter.
Under Reed’s supervision, I held it to the light.
May you like
There was something behind the paper.
A microSD card.
