CHAPTER 9 — The Investigator Had His Own Secret
I waited until Daniel left the motel.
Then I told Professor Hughes about the call.
She frowned.
“Why would someone warn you about him?”
“I don’t know.”
Sarah locked the door.
“Maybe the caller wants you frightened.”
“Or maybe Daniel isn’t who he says he is.”
Professor Hughes pulled out her phone and searched his name.
Daniel Reed had worked in academic integrity for eight years.
Before that, he had been a state investigator.
Nothing looked suspicious.
Then Sarah noticed something.
“Search the Holloway case.”
Professor Hughes did.
A nineteen-year-old newspaper article appeared.
LOCAL MOTHER DIES AFTER LONG COMA.
The article included a photograph of the detective who had verified Sarah’s supposed death.
Detective Thomas Reed.
Daniel’s father.
I felt cold.
The next morning, I confronted Daniel outside the administration building.
“You knew my case before graduation.”
He didn’t deny it.
“My father handled Sarah’s death investigation.”
“Her fake death investigation.”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because I didn’t know whether he was involved.”
“Was he?”
Daniel looked away.
“My father died four years ago. Before he died, he gave me a locked box and told me to open it if Richard Bennett’s name ever appeared in one of my investigations.”
My anger rose.
“And you never opened it?”
“I opened it last night.”
He handed me a key.
“The box is in my office.”
Inside, we found old police notes, photographs, and a cassette tape.
Daniel inserted the tape into a dusty recorder.
His father’s voice filled the room.
My name is Thomas Reed. If this recording is being heard, I probably failed to correct the worst mistake of my career.
Daniel closed his eyes.
The voice continued.
Richard Bennett paid me to accept a false death certificate for Sarah Holloway. He told me the child would be safer with him. I believed him.
Then Thomas described hidden payments.
Threats.
A falsified cremation report.
At the end, his voice became unsteady.
I tried to reopen the case. Richard told me he had evidence that would send my son to prison.
Daniel stopped the tape.
“What evidence?” I asked.
“I don’t know.”
His phone rang.
He answered, listened, then went pale.
Dean Grant had been found.
May you like
He was unconscious in a storage unit.
And beside him was a handwritten confession claiming that I had planned the entire fraud.
