Chapter 6
I met Eleanor for coffee two days later.
She looked smaller than before. Frail. But her eyes were sharp.
I told her about the notebook.
She closed her eyes for a long moment.
"Can I see it?"
I handed her the copy.
She read the last page. Her hand went to her mouth.
"He knew. My boy knew they were going to kill him."
A tear fell onto the page.
"Eleanor," I said gently. "Tell me about them. About Richard. About Victor. About Melissa."
She wiped her eyes.
"Richard and David started the company together. Just two kids with a dream. I watched them build it from nothing."
She paused.
"Then Melissa came along. Beautiful. Charming. David fell hard. They got engaged. But Melissa... she always wanted more. More money. More status."
"And Richard?"
Eleanor's mouth tightened.
"Richard wanted what David had. The company. The respect. And Melissa. I saw the way he looked at her."
"Victor?"
"Victor was always trouble. Melissa got him a job in the company. He handled construction. David found out he was skimming. Hundreds of thousands of dollars."
She leaned forward.
"David was going to confront them. The week he disappeared, he told me, 'Mom, I found something. I'm going to fix it. Don't worry.'"
Her voice broke.
"He told me not to worry. And three days later, he was gone."
I reached across the table and took her hand.
"We're going to get justice, Eleanor. I promise."
She looked at me.
"You and your father... you've given me back my son. I will never be able to thank you."
That's when her phone rang.
She looked at it. Her face went white.
"Who is it?" I asked.
She showed me the screen.
A number she didn't recognize.
I told her not to answer.
But the voicemail came through a minute later.
She put it on speaker.
A man's voice. Low. Threatening.
"Mrs. Vance. This is your only warning. Let the dead stay dead. If you push this, you'll join your son. And the pool girl and her father will too."
The call ended.
Eleanor was trembling.
I called Detective Mills immediately.
He traced the number. Burner phone. Useless.
But one thing was clear.
Victor was still in town.
And he was watching us.
That night, I couldn't sleep.
I kept thinking about the notebook. About David's last words.
And then it hit me.
The USB drive.
We hadn't looked at it yet.
I got out of bed and went to Dad's office.
He was there, sitting in the dark, staring at the waterproof bag.
"You couldn't sleep either," I said.
He looked up.
"I was just about to plug it in."
We sat together at his old computer.
The USB contained one file.
A video.
Dated the night David disappeared.
May you like
We clicked play.
And what we saw changed everything.
