Chapter 7 - The Password Was a Night He Could Not Remember
They took the laptop and dashcam card to Ortiz.
A digital forensics technician cloned both devices while Daniel paced the small interview room.
"Try the password hint," Ortiz said. "The night Daniel forgot."
Emily looked at him. "Do you remember anything from that night?"
"Pieces. Rain. Headlights. My father's voice."
"Anything else?"
Daniel rubbed the scar above his eyebrow.
"A song. Claire used to play it nonstop. 'Midnight Rider.' Dad hated it."
The technician tried MIDNIGHTRIDER.
Wrong.
"What did your mother say happened?" Ortiz asked.
"I took a company pickup. I was seventeen. I hit a deer on an access road. I woke up at Keller's private clinic. Mom said she kept police out of it so I wouldn't lose scholarships or get charged."
"Was there a police report?"
"No."
"Insurance claim?"
"I don't know."
Claire, sitting in the corner with a bandage on her hand from the car fire, spoke for the first time.
"There was blood on the truck."
Daniel turned. "What?"
Claire stared at the floor.
"I saw it the next morning. Mom made Evan wash the front grille before Dad got home."
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"Because she told me it was deer blood too. And because I was fifteen and terrified of her."
The room went quiet.
Emily whispered, "My dad died that same night."
Daniel's head snapped toward her.
"No."
"The official report says he fell from a loading platform at Site 14 around 11:40 p.m."
Daniel backed into the wall.
Ortiz said, "Where was Site 14?"
Claire answered. "Off Route 6. Same rural access road Daniel used to take when he wanted to drive fast."
Daniel's face went gray.
"No."
Emily crossed the room, but he raised a hand.
"Don't."
The technician opened the dashcam image.
"Card is damaged, but there's recoverable metadata. Last recording date matches the night of Thomas Hayes's crash eight years ago."
"Can you recover video?" Ortiz asked.
"Maybe."
Then he looked at the encrypted folder.
"What was the father's name? Emily's father."
"Michael Carter," Emily said.
The technician typed MICHAELCARTER.
Wrong.
Daniel shut his eyes.
Rain. Headlights. A voice yelling.
Not his mother.
His father.
Daniel, wake up!
He opened his eyes.
"Try 1140."
The technician entered 1140.
The folder unlocked.
Inside were dozens of files.
At the top was a scanned incident report for Michael Carter's death.
At the bottom, highlighted in red by Thomas Hayes, was a handwritten note.
11:40 is false. Michael was still alive after midnight. Margaret knows who hit him.
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