Chapter 8: Her Father's Name
Daniel went quiet when I read him the contents of Marcus's letter.
"Say the father's name again," he said.
"Gerald Ashworth."
A pause.
"Gerald Ashworth who owns Ashworth Capital Partners."
"I don't know his business.
He's just always been — her father.
He came to the wedding.
He sent Lily gifts at Christmas."
"Ryan, I know that name.
He's been under informal scrutiny for financial misconduct for about three years.
Nothing charged yet, but there's a federal investigator who will be very interested in a signed statement connecting him to a staged vehicle collision." Daniel's voice had taken on a different quality — focused, sharp.
"This is significantly larger than a custody matter."
"I don't care about large," I said.
"I care about Lily."
"I understand.
And Lily is protected — that hasn't changed.
But if what Marcus wrote is accurate, Diane d*ed because she was going to expose her own father.
And you need to understand what that means for how we proceed."
I was standing at the kitchen window.
Outside, Mrs.
Patterson's garden was visible over the fence, tidy rows of something green just coming up.
Ordinary.
Calm.
"What do we do?" I said.
"I'm going to contact the investigator today.
Quietly.
I'm going to share the letter and the phone records — I've already submitted a request for those — and I'm going to let them move on Ashworth through their own process.
That protects you.
You're not making accusations.
You're providing documentation."
"And her?" My wife.
I still hadn't said her name out loud since she left.
"The protective order was granted this morning.
She cannot return to the property.
CPS has opened a file based on the camera footage — they'll conduct their own interview with Lily in the next few days, with you present.
That process will run parallel to everything else."
"She doesn't know about her father yet.
About what Marcus wrote."
"No.
And I'd like to keep it that way for now."
I thought about that.
About her standing in the hallway yesterday, steady, calculating, deciding how much to give me.
Had she known what her father had done?
Had she suspected?
Had she simply chosen not to ask?
I didn't know.
And I realized I didn't know her well enough to answer that, which told me everything about three years of marriage.
"There's one more thing," Daniel said.
"The investigator is going to want to recover Diane's phone if possible.
The photographs she took — if they still exist anywhere, in a cloud backup, anything — that's primary evidence."
Diane's phone.
I walked to the bedroom.
To the closet.
To the top shelf where I had put a small cardboard box two years ago and not opened it since.
Inside was Diane's wallet.
Her keys.
A paperback she'd been reading.
And her phone in a cracked case, battery long d*ad.
I had kept it because I couldn't throw it away.
"I have her phone," I said.
Daniel went very quiet.
"It was in her things.
I kept her things."
"Don't charge it," he said immediately.
"Don't plug it in.
I'm sending someone this afternoon."
I held the phone in my hand.
The cracked screen.
The small sticker Lily had put on the back of the case — a yellow star — before she was old enough to understand that her mother wasn't coming home.
"She was trying to protect us," I said.
"Even at the end."
"Yes," Daniel said.
May you like
"She was."
I set the phone down carefully on the shelf and went to get my daughter.
