Moreno's warning stayed with me all night.
Forty-eight hours.
That was the window she wanted reconstructed—the final two days before Camille's car left the road.
By morning, I had spread every document across my dining-room table. Bank records. Phone logs. Camille's letters. Samuel's photographs. The notes from her investigation. Even the old weather report from the night of the crash.
Rosalind watched me from the doorway.
“You're doing detective work again.”
I looked up.
“I suppose I am.”
She came into the room carrying two pieces of toast.
“Then you need breakfast.”
I smiled.
She put one piece beside my papers.
“Mom always said people think better when they eat.”
“She was right.”
Rosalind nodded solemnly.
“She usually was.”
After she left for school, I called Moreno.
She had already obtained additional records from Camille's former employer. There had been a payment from one of Jason's associated companies to an account belonging to a consulting firm.
The consulting firm had no employees.
Its registered address was a mailbox.
Its listed director was the same attorney who had prepared the earlier guardianship documents.
The payment had been made two days before Camille's death.
I stared at the amount.
It wasn't enormous.
But it wasn't insignificant either.
It was enough to pay for legal work designed to establish a case against me.
“There's more,” Moreno said.
She sent me another document.
The payment had originated from a business account Jason controlled.
But the money hadn't stayed there long.
It had passed through three accounts before reaching the attorney.
Someone had tried to make the trail difficult to follow.
“Can you trace the first transfer?”
“We're working on it.”
“And the motel?”
“We found the reservation.”
I waited.
“It was made under Jason's name.”
My hand tightened around the phone.
“Who stayed there?”
“Jason checked in. Wayne was recorded entering the building later.”
“Was Camille there?”
“No evidence so far.”
That distinction mattered.
I had learned not to turn suspicion into certainty.
The motel proved Jason and Wayne were together.
It did not prove what they discussed.
It did not prove what happened afterward.
It only gave us another piece.
Moreno arranged for me to meet the motel manager.
His name was Albert Crane.
He remembered the storm because the power had gone out twice.
“I don't remember your son specifically,” he said.
“You have the records.”
“Yes.”
He opened an old logbook.
“Room 214.”
I looked at the entry.
Jason had checked in shortly after six in the evening.
Wayne entered around eight.
At 10:36, someone else came to the desk.
A woman.
Albert remembered her because she was soaked from the rain.
“Could you describe her?”
“Dark coat. Brown hair. Carrying a canvas bag.”
My heart began pounding.
“Did she give a name?”
He checked the log.
“Camille Miller.”
I stared at him.
“What?”
“She signed in.”
The room seemed to lose its air.
“Are you sure?”
Albert frowned.
“I kept copies.”
He showed me the signature.
It was hers.
Camille had been at the motel that night.
Jason had told me she had never seen him.
The investigators had believed she left home because of a phone call.
But now we knew she had gone to the motel.
For what?
Albert remembered another detail.
“She argued with your son.”
“How long?”
“Ten minutes. Maybe fifteen.”
“Did you hear what they said?”
“No. The office door was closed.”
“What happened after?”
“She left.”
“Alone?”
Albert hesitated.
“I thought she did.”
“You thought?”
“I saw her walk outside. But I didn't see her car leave.”
I looked at Moreno.
“Did Jason leave?”
“Not according to the parking record.”
The motel had a side camera.
The recording was old but still partially recoverable.
We watched it.
At 11:02, Camille left the building.
She stood beneath the awning.
Rain hammered the pavement.
She looked toward the parking lot.
Then she took out her phone.
At 11:05, she called someone.
The number belonged to me.
I stared at the screen.
For eighteen months, Jason had told me I had called Camille.
He had been right about one thing.
There had been a call.
But he had reversed the direction.
Camille had called me.
I had never received it.
The call lasted four seconds.
Moreno looked at the record.
“Your phone never connected.”
I remembered that night.
My phone had been on the kitchen counter.
The storm had knocked out the cell signal repeatedly.
I had received no missed call.
But Camille had tried.
Then the camera showed something else.
Jason stepped outside.
He looked at Camille.
She walked toward her car.
Wayne came out behind Jason.
They spoke.
Then Wayne went back inside.
Jason remained outside.
Camille drove away.
I exhaled slowly.
“What happened next?”
Moreno pulled up the traffic-camera record.
Camille's vehicle appeared twelve minutes later.
Then another vehicle followed.
A dark pickup.
Wayne's truck.
It remained behind her for several miles.
My hands went cold.
“Was Jason in it?”
“We don't know.”
The pickup disappeared from the camera network.
Camille's vehicle appeared again near the highway.
Then the storm intensified.
Visibility dropped.
Her car left the road twenty-seven minutes later.
There was no evidence in the available footage that another vehicle struck her.
No collision.
No physical contact.
But someone had followed her.
Moreno was careful.
“We still cannot say the following caused the crash.”
“I understand.”
I did.
The truth had become more complicated than the story I had carried.
Maybe Camille lost control because of the weather.
Maybe she was distracted.
Maybe she was frightened.
Maybe someone following her contributed indirectly.
We didn't know.
But we now knew Jason had lied about where she had been.
And we knew Wayne had followed her afterward.
That afternoon, Moreno received another report.
The retired detective who had originally handled the crash investigation had kept a personal copy of one item.
A handwritten note from Camille.
He claimed he had forgotten about it.
Moreno did not believe that explanation.
The note contained one sentence.
Jason knows I found the second account.
I read it three times.
“What second account?”
Moreno shook her head.
“We're looking.”
I drove home with that phrase repeating in my mind.
The second account.
Maybe it was the missing money.
Maybe it was the account that connected Jason to the trust.
Maybe it contained something else.
When I arrived home, Rosalind was sitting at the kitchen table doing homework.
She looked up.
“Did you find something?”
I took off my coat.
“Yes.”
“Something bad?”
“Something important.”
She returned to her math worksheet.
After a moment, she said, “Mom used to say important things can be scary and still be good.”
I smiled.
“She did say that.”
That night, I barely slept.
At 2:17 in the morning, my phone vibrated.
It was a message from Moreno.
We found the second account.
Below that was a photograph of a bank statement.
The account belonged to Jason.
The final transfer before Camille's death was not to the attorney.
It was to an insurance company.
And the beneficiary attached to the policy was not Jason.
It was Rosalind.
I stared at the screen.
Then I read the amount.
It was large enough to change the meaning of everything.
The policy had been purchased six days before Camille died.
And the insured person was Camille.
Click here to continue reading: PART 10: The Insurance Policy Had Been Hidden in Plain Sight, and Its Beneficiary Explained Why Camille Had Become a Problem Jason Could Not Ignore
At Ten That Night, My Neighbor Gave Me One Strange Instruction—and Suddenly Every Ordinary Thing in My House Felt Dangerous
Part 9 of 12
