Chapter 11 - The Driver's Price
The driver was named Alan Pike. He had testified that rain and a blown tire caused the collision. Two days afterward, a consulting firm had paid him eighty thousand dollars.
"Consulting for what?" Evelyn asked.
Marcus checked the invoice. "No services described. The company dissolved the next month."
Detective Price agreed to review copies. She warned Evelyn not to confront Pike. Evelyn promised not to, then found his current address in the same folder and stared at it for an hour.
It was Rosa who broke the silence. "Let the police knock first. We need him alive and talking."
Price located Pike at a repair shop outside town. When she arrived, he was packing a duffel bag. He denied everything until she showed him the payment receipt.
"I didn't mean for anyone to die," he said. "They told me to scare Thomas. Force him off the road. He went over the guardrail before I could stop."
"Who told you?" Price asked.
Pike swallowed. "The woman in the gold dress."
That statement was not yet a conviction, but it broke open the case. Price obtained an order to preserve Cole Holdings' accounts and began seeking warrants based on financial records and witness testimony.
Meanwhile, Daniel appeared at Evelyn's front gate with flowers. She came outside carrying a sealed evidence bag containing the photograph of his argument with Thomas.
"I was young," Daniel said. "I made a terrible mistake."
"You spent five years looking me in the eye. That wasn't one mistake."
He dropped the flowers. "Celeste threatened my brother's medical care. She owned the debt. I got trapped."
"And Vivian?"
"She was part of the deal."
Evelyn felt something inside her go cold. "You talk about women like they're property."
Daniel stepped closer. "If Celeste goes down, she'll take your company with her."
Then he said the one thing Evelyn hadn't expected.
May you like
Pike had a daughter of his own, Price learned, a woman only a few years younger than Evelyn. He had told her that a terrible accident had changed his life. Now he sat in a bare interview room and discovered that regret was not the same as accountability. When the detective asked why he'd taken the money, he whispered, 'I thought I could live with it.' She slid the photographs across the table. 'And could you?' He couldn't answer.
"Your father signed a separate agreement. He wasn't completely innocent."
