“They will tell him I blamed him.
They will threaten Hannah because she has the master records.
Make them believe she knows nothing.
Get her out of Albany.
One day, the evidence she carries can finish what we started.”
The room became completely still.
Dad took the note from Mom and read it himself.
His eyes moved slowly across each line, then returned to the beginning as though the words might change.
“They said he was screaming my name,” Dad murmured.
“They said he told them I ran.”
Daniel’s recorded voice continued from the laptop.
“Frank, you did what I asked.
You went home because someone had to protect Hannah and Diane.
Do not believe anything they tell you about that night.”
Dad folded forward until both hands covered his face.
For ten years, he had believed Daniel died thinking he was a coward.
The men outside knocked again.
This time the front door handle moved.
Dad straightened immediately.
“No matter what happens,” he said, “do not let them take that drive.”
I looked toward the locked door.
“They aren’t taking anything.”
Owen touched the old photograph.
“Daniel was my father?”
There was no gentle way left to tell him.
“Yes.”
He studied Daniel’s face.
The same serious eyes looked back at him from beneath the hard hat.
“Did he know about me?”
“He knew I was pregnant.
He didn’t know whether you were a boy or a girl.”
Owen swallowed.
“Why didn’t you tell Grandpa?”
I looked at Dad.
“Because Daniel made me promise not to say his name until the evidence was safe.
He believed Silver Creek was listening to everyone connected to him.”
Dad sank into a chair.
“I suspected,” he said.
“The way you defended the baby.
The way Daniel kept asking whether you were all right.
But I prayed I was wrong.”
The man outside raised his voice.
“Hannah, your father already made the sensible choice once.
Don’t force him to choose again.”
The cruelty in the words transported me back to the night Dad ordered me from the house.
But this time Dad heard it too.
He rose and walked toward the front door.
Mom caught his sleeve.
“Frank.”
He looked at her hand, then at Owen.
“I spent ten years letting them use my fear,” he said.
“That ends now.”
He unlocked only the top bolt and opened the door a few inches, keeping the chain secured.
Two men stood on the porch.
I recognized one from photographs in the plant’s archived reports.
He had been a security supervisor when Daniel disappeared.
