Former private contractor.
Cold.
Efficient.
He gave me the instruction to delete the files, and while I was copying the access keys, I overheard a phone call.”
“What did he say?”
“He said, ‘The Bennett boy has the old man’s second copy.
We can’t make the same mistake twice.’”
Leo felt the hair rise along his arms.
“The same mistake.”
“That’s what he said.”
“What mistake?”
Foster hesitated.
“I don’t know.
But Dunmore sounded like he was talking about Daniel.”
Anna was suddenly standing beside the booth.
Leo hadn’t seen her cross the room.
Her face was pale.
“What did you say?”
Foster shrank backward.
“Mrs. Bennett, I’m so sorry.
I only know what I heard.”
“Say it again.”
“‘We can’t make the same mistake twice.’”
Anna gripped the edge of the table.
Leo slid over and she sat beside him.
For a moment she didn’t speak.
When she did, her voice was very small.
“The police told me it was an accident.”
“I know,” Leo said.
“The road was wet.
The car lost control.
They said it was nobody’s fault.”
“I know.”
“I believed them.”
Her hand found his, trembling.
“Because I needed to.”
Leo squeezed her fingers.
He didn’t trust himself to speak.
Maya picked up the flash drive.
“What’s on this?”
“Copies of Dunmore’s internal messages,” Foster said.
“Payment schedules.
Names of administrators who received monthly transfers.
And a list of schools where Aegis has the remote deletion setting enabled.”
Maya looked at Leo.
“That’s evidence.”
“It’s a start,” Leo said.
He turned to Foster.
“Will you give this to Investigator Price yourself?”
Foster’s eyes filled with fear.
“If I walk into the district attorney’s office, Sloane’s people will know within an hour.”
“Then we’ll bring Price to you.”
“Leo, please.
I just want to disappear.”
Leo looked at him steadily.
“You can’t disappear from what you’ve done.
But you can decide what you do next.”
The words surprised him as they left his mouth.
They sounded like something his father would say.
Foster stared at the table for a very long time.
Then he whispered, “Okay.”
That afternoon, Leo sat in a small interview room at the district attorney’s office while Price spread photographs across the table.
They showed a stretch of highway outside Savannah.
A guardrail bent like a paper clip.
A shallow ditch.
A silver sedan resting on its side beneath a thin layer of rain.
Leo had not seen any of it before.
He forced himself to look.
“This was your father’s car,” Price said gently.
“I’ve reviewed the original report again.
Something bothers me.”
“What?”
“There were no skid marks.”
Leo looked up.
“What does that mean?”
“Either your father never braked, or something prevented him from braking.”
“Dad was an excellent driver.”
“I believe that.”
Price tapped another photo.
“The car’s event data recorder was never fully analyzed.
It was logged as corrupted and stored in an evidence warehouse.
Last night, I asked for it.”
Anna sat beside Leo, rigid.
“And?”
“It wasn’t corrupted.
It had simply been sent to the wrong department.
A technician reviewed it this morning.”
Price paused.
“Thirty seconds before the crash, the vehicle’s braking system sent three fault warnings.
Then the steering assist disengaged.”
Leo stared at him.
“Mechanical failure?”
“Possibly.
Or possibly something designed to look like one.”
Anna made a small, broken sound.
Leo put his arm around her shoulders.
“Samuel,” she said, “are you telling me my husband was murdered?”
“I’m telling you I’m no longer willing to call it an accident.”
The room felt very small.
Leo thought about the last video.
If something happens to me, the truth is in the original frames.
Not paranoia.
Not exhaustion.
A warning.
“There’s something else,” Price said.
“Late yesterday, a retired truck driver contacted our office.
He saw the news about Westbridge and recognized the name Bennett.
Two years ago, he was on the same highway the night of the crash.
He gave a statement to a highway patrolman, but nobody ever followed up.”
“What did he see?” Leo asked.
“A gray SUV traveling very close behind your father’s car.
Then, moments before the crash, it pulled alongside.
He said it looked as if the driver was trying to force Daniel toward the shoulder.”
Anna covered her mouth.
“He remembered one more thing.
The SUV had a small parking permit hanging from the mirror.
Silver triangle inside a circle.”
Leo felt the world narrow to a single point.
“Aegis.”
“Yes.”
“Can the driver identify who was inside?”
“Not clearly.
But he remembered the license plate prefix.
We’re tracing it now.”
Leo let out a breath that sounded like something tearing.
For two years he had told himself it was a terrible accident.
That nobody could have prevented it.
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