Chapter 19: What Really Happened

The call ended before I could ask another question.

Officer Daniel Cross had given me only one fact.

There had been a third person at Nathaniel's crash.

Everything else would have to wait.

I lowered my phone slowly.

Damien hadn't moved.

"Who was that?" he asked.

"Someone who remembers more than the police report."

"Vivian..."

"Not tonight."

I stepped back into the guest room.

"I have nothing else to say."

Before Damien could answer, I closed the door.

The lock clicked between us.

For the first time since our marriage began, I wasn't locking him out because I was hurt.

I was protecting evidence.

I sat on the floor beside Nathaniel's archive boxes until nearly midnight.

The recording echoed through my mind.

"Never trust the first story."

Nathaniel had repeated that warning for a reason.

The official story had never made sense.

A rainy road.

Driver fatigue.

Loss of control.

Case closed.

Three years later, every piece of evidence I uncovered contradicted that conclusion.

A torn file.

A missing report page.

Hidden financial transfers.

A witness erased from the investigation.

Someone had rewritten history.

And everyone had accepted it.

The following morning, Victor Hayes was already waiting when I arrived at his office.

Officer Daniel Cross stood beside the window.

He looked exhausted.

Dark circles framed his eyes, and the collar of his coat was turned up despite the warm weather.

"Mrs. Ashford," he said.

"Thank you for coming."

"Victor said you wanted to tell me the truth."

Daniel gave a slow nod.

"The truth I should have reported three years ago."

Victor quietly closed the office door.

"Start from the beginning," he said.

Daniel removed a worn notebook from his coat.

"I was the first patrol officer to reach the crash scene."

"The ambulance arrived eight minutes later."

"Nathaniel's vehicle had already left the road."

"The driver's side was crushed against a concrete barrier."

"Was my brother still alive?"

"Barely."

"He was unconscious."

"But he wasn't alone."

I held my breath.

"Who was with him?"

"A man."

"Late thirties."

"Dark overcoat."

"No visible injuries."

"He claimed he had witnessed the accident."

"Did he identify himself?"

"No."

"He kept saying help was already coming."

"Something felt wrong."

"Why?"

"Because his shoes were clean."

I frowned.

"It had been raining heavily."

"The road was covered in mud."

"Everyone else at the scene was soaked."

"Except him."

"He looked like he'd stepped out of an office."

"What happened next?"

"He walked away before detectives arrived."

"You let him leave?"

"I wasn't supposed to."

"But then I received a radio order."

"From whom?"

"Dispatch instructed me to prioritise traffic control."

"By the time I returned..."

"...the man had disappeared."

Victor folded his arms.

"Was the order genuine?"

"That's what troubles me."

"Dispatch has no record of making that call."

"Someone impersonated them."

Silence filled the room.

"What about the report?" I asked.

Daniel opened his notebook.

"I wrote everything."

"The unidentified witness."

"His description."

"The unusual radio instruction."

"The second set of tyre marks."

"Second tyre marks?"

"Yes."

"Another vehicle stopped behind Nathaniel's car."

"Long enough for someone to get out."

"Then it drove away."

"Those marks vanished from the final report."

"Along with the witness."

"And the fake radio order."

"Who removed them?"

"I don't know."

"By the time I submitted my paperwork, someone senior had already rewritten it."

"Did you challenge it?"

Daniel looked down.

"I did."

"Two days later I was transferred to another district."

"No explanation."

"Just a transfer."

"Why speak now?"

"Because yesterday someone broke into my apartment."

Victor's expression hardened.

"Did they steal anything?"

"No."

"They searched."

"Every drawer."

"Every cupboard."

"Looking for my original notebook."

He held it up.

"Fortunately, they searched the wrong place."

"Where was it?"

"Inside my daughter's old piano bench."

My heartbeat quickened.

"Do you still have the original photographs?"

"Only one."

Daniel carefully slid a plastic evidence sleeve across the desk.

Inside was a rain-soaked photograph.

Most of the image was blurred.

The wrecked car occupied the centre.

The ambulance hadn't arrived yet.

A man stood beside the driver's door.

His face was partially hidden beneath the hood of a dark coat.

But something caught my attention immediately.

His left hand.

He wore a heavy signet ring.

A black stone set into polished silver.

I had seen that ring before.

Not recently.

Years ago.

At one of Damien's charity dinners.

My stomach tightened.

"Can you enlarge the image?" I whispered.

Victor adjusted the office scanner and projected the photograph onto a computer monitor.

The resolution improved only slightly.

The man's face remained impossible to identify.

The ring, however, became much clearer.

An engraved raven spread its wings across the black stone.

Raven.

My mind returned instantly to Nathaniel's torn financial file.

Raven Capital.

"Victor..."

"Yes?"

"Have you ever heard of a company called Raven Capital?"

He didn't answer immediately.

Instead, his eyes fixed on the enlarged photograph.

The colour slowly drained from his face.

"I have," he said quietly.

"But Raven Capital isn't the real name."

"It's a holding company."

"Its legal owner has never appeared on paper."

"Everyone who investigated it reached the same conclusion."

"There's only one person behind it."

"Who?"

Victor looked directly at me.

"Someone connected to the Ashford family."

"Not Damien."

"Someone older."