Chapter 13 - THE SECRET FROM THE PAST
Two weeks later, the settlement documents arrived. Along with them came what Gareth had promised: boxes of records. Names. Dates. Transactions. Connections stretching through decades, weaving through politics, business, law enforcement—tentacles reaching everywhere.
And buried deep, in a folder marked CONFIDENTIAL – PERSONAL, I found something that stopped my breath.
A handwritten letter. Dated barely a month before my father died. Addressed to Gareth. In my father’s handwriting.
*I know what you are planning. I know you intend to use Julian to take everything from Genevieve. I will not live forever to protect her. So listen carefully—I have arranged protection. If she is harmed, if her property is stolen, if her child is threatened… everything you hold comes crashing down. Choose peace or choose ruin. The decision is yours.*
Gareth’s reply, scrawled across the bottom in a different, angrier hand: You cannot protect her forever. And when you are gone… I will have what is mine.
My father had known. He had known exactly what Gareth intended to do. And he had died before he could finish stopping it.
But there was more. Tucked beneath the letter was a single newspaper clipping, yellowed and folded tight. A death notice. Dated twenty-five years earlier. A woman’s name I did not recognize. And in the margin, my father’s handwriting once more: Gareth’s wife. Did not die of illness. He killed her. Threatened to expose him to authorities if he did not abandon his plan. That is why he fears exposure more than prison.
My blood ran cold.
Gareth had not merely been greedy, ruthless, ambitious. He was a murderer. And my father had known. Had kept it as his ultimate leverage. Which meant… my father’s heart attack may not have been natural at all.
I stood up, legs trembling, and walked to Sarah’s office. I placed the documents on her desk without speaking.
She read them slowly. Her face paled.
“Gen… if your father confronted Gareth with this information… and died shortly afterward… we cannot rule out foul play. The autopsy was cursory. No investigation opened. Everyone accepted heart attack. But with this evidence… everything changes.”
“Gareth killed him,” I said, my voice hollow. “To silence the one man who could have destroyed him. And then… he waited years to finish what he started.”
Sarah reached for her phone.
“I am reopening the case. Immediately. If there is the slightest possibility your father was murdered… we pursue it. Gen… look at the date on Gareth’s reply. It matches the timeline perfectly. He threatened your father… and weeks later your father was dead.”
I walked to the window, staring out at the city my father had built.
He had died believing he could protect me with warnings and letters. He had trusted that threats of exposure would hold Gareth back. But Gareth had killed him anyway. And then he had come for me. For my husband. For my daughter. For everything.
“Sarah,” I said quietly. “Gareth knew I would eventually find these records. He included them intentionally. Why?”
Sarah looked at the documents spread before her. Then her eyes widened in horror.
“Because he knows the statute of limitations on that murder expired years ago. He is confessing… daring us to do anything. He is telling you exactly what he did… and laughing because he knows he cannot be prosecuted for it.”
She was right. The date. The jurisdiction. The charge. Too much time had passed. Gareth had admitted to killing my father… and the law could not touch him.
I gripped the window ledge until my knuckles turned white.
Gareth thought he had won completely. That he could mock me from his cell, safe from consequence.
May you like
But he had forgotten one thing.
The law may have failed my father. But I had not.
