Chapter 16 - The InterviewDad went with his lawyer voluntarily. I wanted to go too, but Tessa reminded me I had my own legal interests and needed to keep our accounts separate.

"Your father has to answer for what he knows," she said. "You don't help him by guessing."

For six hours I sat with Mom at the dining-room table. She folded towels she didn't need to fold. I checked my phone until the screen hurt my eyes.

At last Dad called.

"I'm coming home," he said. "They asked about approvals, the fire and Marcus. I told them what I could verify."

"Are you okay?"

"Not especially."

It was the most truthful answer he'd given me in years.

That evening, Iris found archived access records in an old system backup. They showed that Dad's login had been used from the Newark warehouse on dates he was speaking at conferences in California. Someone had his credentials.

"It doesn't prove he knew nothing," Tessa cautioned. "But it gives investigators something testable."

The discovery didn't erase Dad's failures. He'd built a company where people could move money under his name while workers were threatened for noticing. I told him so at dinner.

"You're right," he said. "I trusted the wrong people and ignored warnings. I can't undo that."

"You can stop hiding behind how busy you were."

He nodded. "I will."

Then Denise called. Her daughter, now grown, had found a second envelope in a box of Curtis's belongings. It contained an audio cassette and a handwritten note: FOR NAOMI, IF SHE EVER ASKS.

I felt the room tilt. Curtis had died when I was ten. Why would he leave something for me?

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We drove to Denise's house. She passed me the envelope without opening it. Inside was a photo of me as a child, standing beside Grandpa at a summer picnic.

On the back Curtis had written: SHE SAW WHO LOADED THE TRUCK.