Eric survived.
The bullet had passed through the soft tissue of his shoulder without striking bone or an artery. He was transported under guard.
Ethan went to the hospital too.
Melissa rode with him.
Brian wanted to follow.
Ruiz stopped him.
“Not yet.”
“He knows me.”
“That is exactly why I need to understand what happened.”
Brian looked at me.
I could see the request before he made it.
Stay.
Six months earlier, I would have done it without hesitation.
Now I chose to.
That distinction mattered.
We sat inside the storage office while forensic technicians processed C-114.
Patricia was taken into custody for questioning.
Brian stared at his hands.
“I visited Ethan.”
“Yes.”
“I brought him medicine.”
“Apparently.”
“I don’t remember doing it.”
I waited.
He looked at me.
“What if there’s more?”
“There probably is.”
He flinched.
I did not soften the answer.
“You need the truth, Brian. So do I.”
“What if I hurt somebody?”
“Then we find out.”
He lowered his head.
“I accused you because I thought evidence was evidence.”
“And now?”
“Now I know evidence can be arranged.”
That was the first intelligent thing he had said about our marriage in months.
Ruiz entered carrying photocopies of several ledger pages.
“The original is going into evidence.”
Brian nodded.
“What did Ethan mean about a policeman?”
“We found several names associated with law enforcement.”
“Corrupt?”
“Most appear to involve payments.”
“Most?”
She placed one page on the desk.
A name had been circled in Raymond’s handwriting.
Detective Thomas Avery.
Beside it:
REFUSED.
Below:
TRUST IF NECESSARY.
Ruiz tapped the page.
“Avery worked organized crime twenty-two years ago.”
“Still alive?”
“Yes.”
“Still police?”
“Retired.”
Brian studied the name.
“I know him.”
Ruiz looked up.
“How?”
“He came to our house when I was a kid.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
“Think.”
Brian closed his eyes.
His memory came slowly.
“Dad hated him.”
“That conflicts with the ledger.”
“Dad acted like he hated him.”
“Maybe intentionally.”
Brian nodded.
“Victor was there sometimes.”
Ruiz understood.
“Your father may have pretended Avery was an enemy because he didn’t want Victor knowing he trusted him.”
We found Thomas Avery the following afternoon.
He was seventy-four and lived in a small brick house outside town.
Ruiz interviewed him officially.
Daniel attended on my behalf because the identity theft remained part of the larger investigation.
Avery was thin, sharp-eyed and unimpressed by everybody.
When Ruiz showed him Raymond’s ledger, he stared at it for a long time.
“I told that fool to burn this.”
Brian leaned forward.
“You knew my father?”
“Better than you probably want to.”
“What was he?”
Avery looked at him.
“A criminal.”
Brian absorbed the word.
No euphemism.
No family mythology.
“What kind?”
“Your father started collecting legitimate debts. Then Victor arrived.”
“What changed?”
“Everything.”
Victor had connections with illegal gambling operations, fraudulent contractors and businesses that needed debts collected without courts.
Raymond supplied muscle.
Victor supplied clients.
Eventually money laundering followed.
Then bribery.
Avery investigated them.
“Why wasn’t my father arrested?”
“He became an informant.”
Brian stared.
“When?”
“After you got hurt.”
The room changed.
Brian’s voice became quieter.
“My accident.”
Avery nodded.
“That wasn’t an accident.”
Patricia’s story had been partly true.
Brian went with Raymond and Victor to a collection.
But the debtor had not struck Brian.
Victor had.
“Why?”
“You tried to stop him beating a man.”
Brian looked sick.
Avery continued.
“You were twenty-one. You saw Victor lose control. You grabbed him. He hit you with a tire iron.”
I watched Brian.
He had spent his life believing a motorcycle had nearly killed him.
Instead, he had been injured because he tried to stop a beating.
That mattered.
“What did Dad do?”
“Nearly killed Victor.”
“Why didn’t he?”
“Because you were bleeding on the floor.”
Avery looked toward the ledger.
“Raymond brought you to a hospital and invented the motorcycle story. Afterward, he contacted me.”
“He became your informant because of me?”
“Yes.”
Avery explained that Raymond spent years documenting Victor’s operations.
The black ledger became his insurance.
He recorded payments.
Names.
Dates.
Property transfers.
Police officers who accepted bribes.
Officials who looked away.
But one case mattered more.
A man named Andrew Hale.
Brian frowned.
“Victor’s brother?”
“Older brother.”
“What happened to him?”
“Disappeared.”
Avery looked directly at Brian.
“Victor killed him.”
Silence.
“Why?”
“Andrew wanted out.”
Raymond witnessed enough to know the truth but could not prove it.
So he began collecting evidence.
Eventually Victor discovered Raymond was cooperating.
“Is that why Dad died?”
Avery’s expression changed.
“I always believed so.”
“Digoxin?”
Avery nodded slowly.
“Raymond told me Victor had access to it through a veterinary supply company.”
Brian gripped the edge of his chair.
“Then my mother didn’t poison him.”
“I never said she did.”
The relief on Brian’s face was immediate.
Then Avery destroyed it.
“But Patricia knew Victor had threatened him.”
Brian looked up.
“What?”
“She begged Raymond to stop cooperating.”
“Why?”
“Because Victor threatened you.”
Brian sat back.
Avery continued.
“Your mother’s entire life became about keeping you away from that world.”
I thought about Patricia’s choices.
Some suddenly made more sense.
None became acceptable.
“Why did Victor start using Brian again?” I asked.
Avery looked at me.
“Because Raymond hid the ledger somewhere only Brian could locate.”
“But Brian didn’t know where.”
“Consciously.”
That word again.
Avery explained that after Brian’s injury, Raymond sometimes used memory exercises to help him recover.
Places.
Objects.
Patterns.
He hid important documents behind cues Brian could remember without understanding their significance.
C-114 had apparently been one.
Victor knew that.
“He drugged Brian?”
“Possibly.”
“With what?”
Avery shook his head.
“I’m not a doctor.”
Ruiz had already ordered toxicology testing.
The results arrived that evening.
Brian had a sedative in his bloodstream.
Not enough to render him unconscious.
Enough to impair memory formation.
The drug had been prescribed to Eric.
Ruiz called from the hospital.
“Eric says Victor took the pills.”
Brian laughed bitterly.
“Convenient.”
“Very.”
But another discovery was harder to dismiss.
Victor’s fingerprints were on a bottle found in Brian’s truck.
The bottle contained residue from the same medication.
Victor had been dosing him.
The mystery was becoming clearer.
Victor needed the ledger.
Brian’s damaged memory held the location.
Patricia knew enough to fear Victor but not enough to stop him.
Melissa was forced into impersonating me after Ethan disappeared.
Eric helped Victor move money.
And Raymond’s ledger connected all of them.
Yet one question remained.
Who killed Victor?
Avery studied the photocopied pages.
“Your answer may be in here.”
He turned toward the final section.
Several pages had been cut out.
Cleanly.
Not torn.
Removed with a blade.
Ruiz frowned.
“When?”
“No idea.”
Avery examined the binding.
“Recently.”
“What was on them?”
He shook his head.
“Raymond never showed me the complete ledger.”
Brian looked at him.
“Who would know?”
Avery answered immediately.
“Patricia.”
We returned to the station.
Patricia sat behind glass.
When Ruiz showed her the missing section, she stopped pretending not to understand.
“Where are the pages?”
Patricia whispered, “Gone.”
“Who took them?”
“I did.”
Brian stared.
“Why?”
“Because they were about you.”
His face tightened.
“What about me?”
Patricia looked at her son through the glass.
“They contained the reason Victor never wanted you to remember the night you were injured.”
Brian leaned closer.
“I already know he hit me.”
“That wasn’t what he was afraid you would remember.”
“What was?”
Patricia closed her eyes.
“You saw who killed Andrew Hale.”
Brian went still.
“Victor.”
Patricia shook her head.
“No.”
Then she looked at me.
“Raymond did.”
Click here to continue reading: PART 11: Patricia’s Missing Pages Changed Raymond from Informant to Killer, but Brian’s Returning Memory Revealed Who Had Really Swung the Weapon
The Morning My Husband Put Four Bank Slips on the Table and Asked Me Where Our Future Had Gone
Part 10 of 26
