“She’s getting ready to run after you’re gone,” Will said, his voice roughening. “I’m sorry, brother. Sorry I can’t be there to help you through this. Sorry I didn’t push harder when you started dating her. I saw something wrong, but you seemed happy for the first time since Catherine died, and I thought…”
Tears slid down his wasted cheeks.
“I thought maybe I was just a bitter old man who couldn’t stand his best friend moving on,” he whispered.
He wiped his eyes roughly, the oxygen tubes shifting.
“But I was right,” he said quietly. “I was painfully right. And now I’m dying, and all I can give you is this warning.”
He leaned forward, and I could see how much effort it cost him.
“Take this to the police, to Robert, to anyone who will listen,” he said. “But Jim, and this is critical—don’t let them know you know. Not until you’re safe. These people are dangerous. Sophia’s done this at least twice. She knows how to play the grieving widow.”
He sagged back in his chair, exhausted. The camera widened slightly, showing his home office in Bellevue—the room where we’d planned Harrison Tech’s launch, celebrated our first million, argued about whether to go public, gotten drunk the night his father died, and again when Catherine passed.
“Sam’s still investigating,” Will said. “I’ve kept him on retainer in a separate account. Patricia knows he’ll keep digging after I’m gone.”
His gaze locked back on the camera.
“But please, please be careful,” he said. “Be smart. Don’t confront them alone. Promise me, Jim.”
His hand rose in a weak salute—our old gesture from Army ROTC days back in college, before Silicon Valley, before the money, when we were just two kids with dreams bigger than our bank accounts.
“Love you, brother,” he said. “Always did. Now go protect yourself.”
The screen went black.
Then white text appeared:
Additional files in folders below.
Stay alive.
—W.
I sat in the darkening study as the sun moved across the Washington sky, slipping behind the evergreens. Outside, someone was mowing their lawn. A dog barked down the street. Normal sounds from a normal suburban neighborhood, in a world that had just tilted sideways.
My hands shook as I opened the first folder: “Previous Victims – Incomplete Investigation.”
The files painted a picture in newspaper clippings, police reports, and death certificates.
Michael Reed, forty-eight, died August 2015. Accidental fall down the stairs in the Spokane home he shared with “wife” Sophia Reed née Morrison. Police photos showed a two-story colonial, a steep staircase, red circles marking where his head had struck the banister and the landing.
Sophia’s statement: I was at the grocery store. I came home and found him at the bottom of the stairs. I think he tripped.
There was a Safeway receipt, 2:47 p.m. Time of death estimated between 2:30 and 3:00 p.m.
Sam’s note in red ink: Store 8 minutes from house. Could have killed him, driven to store, bought items, returned. Timeline tight but possible. No proof. Insurance payout: $750,000. Sophia moves to Seattle 6 months later.
Then Thomas Carlson.
Forty-six years old. Died January 2012 of acute myocardial infarction.
Medical history: perfect health. He’d run the Seattle Marathon two months before meeting Sophia, finishing in under four hours. Four months after their Vegas wedding, he collapsed in their kitchen.
Autopsy: heart attack, natural causes.
Sam’s notes: Medical examiner retired, living in Phoenix. Admitted standard panel only. Didn’t test for certain cardiac drugs (digitalis class) because no reason to suspect. Widow requested cremation 48 hours after death. Body unavailable. Insurance payout: $500,000. Sophia relocates again.
I clicked to the next file and felt the blood drain from my face.
Margaret Sullivan.
“Dylan’s victim,” Sam had written.
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