Chapter 7 - THE HIGHWAY CAMERA
The answer came from a forgotten traffic archive.
Marissa had stopped at a gas station before taking the alternate route.
Security footage no longer existed.
Transaction records did.
At 8:07 p.m., she bought coffee.
At 8:11, her phone received a call.
Unknown prepaid number.
At 8:14, she left.
Instead of continuing north, she turned west.
Toward the road where she died.
The prepaid number had contacted another phone repeatedly.
Nathan’s.
Marcus secured an arrest warrant on the financial conspiracy while investigators continued building the crash case.
Nathan disappeared.
For thirty-six hours, nobody found him.
Then Alejandro received a message.
You want the truth about Marissa? Come alone.
Attached location.
An abandoned Rivers Freight warehouse.
Alejandro immediately called Marcus.
He was not stupid enough to go alone.
But Nathan expected him.
So they made him believe he did.
Alejandro entered wearing a wire.
Nathan stood between abandoned loading bays.
“You always thought you were smarter than everyone.”
Alejandro kept his hands visible.
“What happened to my sister?”
Nathan smiled.
“She should've minded her business.”
Alejandro’s jaw tightened.
“What did you do?”
“Nothing.”
“Then why did Valerie know about her route?”
Nathan’s smile faded.
“You married the wrong woman.”
“You sent her.”
Silence.
Enough.
“You paid her before she met me.”
Nathan shrugged.
“You were lonely.”
“And Sophie?”
“Complication.”
Alejandro nearly crossed the room.
He stopped himself.
“What was Valerie supposed to do?”
“Keep you distracted.”
“With a sick child?”
Nathan laughed.
“Don't pretend wealthy people don't send inconvenient relatives away every day.”
Alejandro felt the wire against his chest.
Keep talking.
“Marissa found your invoices.”
Nathan’s eyes changed.
There.
“She was going to expose you.”
“She didn't understand them.”
“She understood enough.”
Nathan stepped closer.
“She called me that night.”
Alejandro’s heart hammered.
“What did you tell her?”
“That I could explain.”
“Where?”
Nathan smiled.
“On the road.”
There.
Alejandro forced himself not to react.
“Did you touch her brakes?”
Nathan’s face tightened.
“I didn't say that.”
“No.”
Alejandro looked at him.
“But you just admitted meeting her.”
Nathan realized it.
Too late.
Police entered from both loading bays.
Nathan ran.
He made it twelve feet.
The arrest did not answer everything.
But forensic evidence eventually did.
Tool marks.
Financial motive.
Phone data.
Valerie’s messages.
Nathan had arranged for Marissa’s vehicle to be tampered with, intending to frighten her and recover documents she had copied.
He later claimed he never intended her death.
The prosecution would argue otherwise.
Valerie had not participated in Marissa’s original death.
But she knew about it.
Nathan used that secret to recruit her later.
She married Alejandro partly to gain access to company records that could expose Nathan’s old fraud.
And Sophie?
Sophie remembered her mother keeping documents.
Valerie believed the little girl might eventually reveal where.
So she tried to make Sophie appear chronically ill, emotionally unstable, and unsuitable to remain in Alejandro’s home.
A child had become a loose end.
May you like
And that nearly killed her.
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