Chapter 7 - NATHAN’S LAST DRIVE
Marcus had avoided Nathan’s accident file for eight months.
The photographs were too painful. He knew the basic sequence from the police report: Nathan left the city late, drove through rain, lost control, and struck a concrete barrier.
Investigators found no evidence of another vehicle striking him.
Marcus accepted that.
Now he opened the file in Hannah’s office.
The original investigation included roadway photographs, vehicle records, witness statements, and emergency-response notes. Most supported an ordinary collision.
Then Hannah found the overlooked detail.
Nathan had made a call from his car twenty-six minutes before the crash.
The recipient was Derek Walsh.
The call lasted eleven minutes.
Marcus stared at the record.
“What did Derek tell police?”
“That he barely knew Nathan.”
Derek had lied.
Further records showed Nathan visited Walsh Strategic Services earlier that afternoon. Building cameras captured him entering with a folder. He left forty-eight minutes later without it.
Derek followed him to the parking garage.
The footage ended there.
Marcus wanted to believe Derek caused the crash because the idea gave grief a shape.
Hannah refused to let him outrun the evidence.
“We know they met. We know Derek lied. We do not know what happened on the road.”
Marcus nodded.
He hated that she was right.
The investigation shifted to the folder.
Nathan’s laptop had been returned to the family after the accident, but Richard—not a person, a company technician named Richard Bell—handled the forensic backup. Marcus called him.
Richard said Nathan’s files had been archived but several were encrypted.
He had never received the recovery key.
Hannah located the password manager Nathan used for work.
The recovery phrase required a secondary authentication item.
A security token.
Marcus remembered Nathan keeping one attached to an old brass key ring.
The key ring was missing from his personal effects.
Then Mae remembered seeing Derek take a small object from Nathan’s desk after the funeral.
Victoria told her it belonged to a security consultant.
Mae did not question it.
The missing token might have allowed Derek access to Nathan’s files after death.
Or it might have been the reason he never fully erased them.
The final revelation of the chapter arrived from an insurance investigator who reviewed Nathan’s accident independently. A roadside camera captured a dark SUV following Nathan onto the highway, maintaining distance through two intersections.
The plate was partially obscured by rain.
But the vehicle’s identifying features matched one registered to Walsh Strategic Services.
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Derek had followed Nathan after their confrontation.
And Marcus had never known.
