Chapter 6: The Man Who Closed the Case
His name was Paul Deering.
Emily had looked him up once, two years after her mother's accident, when she was still in the phase of needing to put names to things.
He had been a senior investigator with a private firm called Clearpath Consulting.
The report he had filed was eleven pages.
It concluded: accidental death, no evidence of third-party involvement, case closed.
She had read it so many times she could recite the phrasing from memory.
She texted back one word: *Where.*
He replied within thirty seconds.
A coffee shop two blocks from the hotel.
Open late.
He was already there.
Gerald Marsh looked up from his phone when Emily reached for her coat.
"Where are you going?"
"Someone wants to talk to me."
"Emily." His voice had the careful weight of a man who had seen situations like this deteriorate quickly.
"Tonight has gone well.
That doesn't mean it's safe.
Victoria and Richard are not people who accept—"
"It's the investigator," Emily said.
"The one who closed my mother's case."
Gerald went quiet.
"He texted me.
He wants to meet."
"That could be anything.
It could be an attempt to—"
"I know what it could be." Emily put on her coat.
"I'm going."
Dorothea spoke from her chair.
"Take someone with you."
Emily looked around the room.
Most of the guests had gathered in small clusters, speaking in low voices, the kind of conversations that would continue for weeks.
A few had already left.
One woman was crying quietly near the window while her husband held her hand.
A young man detached himself from the wall.
The one with the camera.
He had put it away.
"I'll go," he said.
Emily looked at him.
She had not spoken to him directly all evening.
"Who are you?"
"Thomas.
I'm a friend of Dorothea's." He said it simply, without elaboration.
"I've been helping her for about eight months."
Emily looked at Dorothea.
The old woman nodded once.
"All right," Emily said.
The coffee shop was nearly empty.
Paul Deering was at a corner table, both hands around a mug he wasn't drinking from.
He was younger than Emily had imagined — mid-fifties, tired-looking, with the kind of face that had once been confident and wasn't anymore.
He stood when she came in.
Sat back down when she didn't offer her hand.
Thomas took a table near the door and opened his phone.
Emily sat across from Deering and waited.
He looked at his mug for a moment.
"I saw the video," he said.
"Someone livestreamed part of it.
It's already been shared a few hundred times."
Emily said nothing.
"I need you to understand something before I say anything else." He looked up.
"I didn't know about the money.
When I took that payment from Aldermere, I was told it was a consulting fee.
A referral.
I had done work for that firm before.
I didn't ask enough questions." He stopped.
"That's not an excuse.
I know it isn't.
I'm telling you so you understand what I did and didn't know."
"What did you know?" Emily said.
He wrapped both hands tighter around the mug.
"I knew the accident report was clean.
I believed that.
The physical evidence was consistent with what we documented." He paused.
"But there was a witness.
A woman who lived on that road.
She called in the day after the accident and said she had seen another car.
A dark car, parked on the shoulder about a quarter mile back, that pulled out after your mother's vehicle went past." He stopped again.
"I didn't follow up on it."
The coffee shop was very quiet.
"Why not?" Emily said.
"Because I got a call from Richard Hartwell's office the same afternoon.
They were very polite.
Very professional.
They said they were aware of the witness and that she was known in the area for making unreliable reports.
They said they would handle it." He looked at Emily directly for the first time.
"I let them handle it."
Emily's hands were flat on the table.
"Where is she now?" she said.
"The witness."
"Still on the same road.
I have her name and address." He reached into his jacket and produced a folded piece of paper.
"I've had it for twenty years."
He set it on the table between them.
Emily looked at it.
Did not pick it up yet.
"Why are you doing this now?" she said.
Deering looked at the table.
"Because I watched that video.
And I watched your face when you read your mother's letter." He was quiet for a moment.
"I have a daughter.
She's about your age."
Emily picked up the paper.
She unfolded it.
The name was Margaret Osei.
The address was on Crestfall Road — the same road where her mother's car had gone off the embankment on a clear November night twenty years ago.
Thomas looked up from his phone near the door.
Emily folded the paper and put it in her coat pocket.
"I'll need a formal statement," she said.
"Everything you just told me.
In writing.
With your signature."
Deering nodded.
"I know."
"Gerald Marsh is the attorney.
I'll give you his contact information."
"I know who he is."
Emily stood.
"One more question."
He looked up.
"The payment from Aldermere.
Do you still have the record of it?"
He reached back into his jacket and produced a second folded paper.
"I've kept everything," he said.
"I've kept it for twenty years."
Emily took it without a word and walked back to where Thomas was waiting.
Outside, the night air was cold and sharp.
"Well?" Thomas said.
Emily looked at the paper in her hand.
"We need to find a woman named Margaret Osei," she said.
"First thing tomorrow."
Thomas nodded.
Emily's phone buzzed.
A message from an unknown number she did not recognize.
*You should have left it alone.
There are things in those letters you don't understand yet.
May you like
Meet me before you do anything else.
— someone who was there that night.*
