Three weeks later, Frank Mercer appeared at Emily's apartment building.
She saw him through the security camera beside the entrance.
He stood beneath the awning with his coat collar raised, looking older than he had when she last saw him.
Emily did not open the door.
Instead, she called Jonathan.
"Frank's downstairs."
"Don't meet him alone," Jonathan advised.
Frank pressed the intercom.
"Emily, please. I just need five minutes."
She remained silent.
"I know you're there."
Jonathan instructed her to document the visit and avoid discussing the investigation.
But Frank continued speaking.
"My attorney doesn't know everything."
Emily stared at the small camera screen.
"What does that mean?"
Frank leaned closer.
"My father left me something. Something I never knew what to do with."
Emily's hand tightened around her phone.
"Give it to your lawyer."
"He'll bury it."
"Then give it to the investigators."
Frank laughed bitterly.
"You think they'll believe me?"
Emily looked at the man who had spent years treating her as disposable.
For the first time, she heard fear without arrogance.
"What do you want, Frank?"
He hesitated.
"Protection."
Emily felt no desire to comfort him.
"If you have evidence, tell the truth."
Frank lowered his head.
"My father kept a recording from the night Daniel died."
Emily stopped breathing for a moment.
"A recording?"
"From an office security system."
"Where is it?"
Frank glanced toward the parking lot.
"In a storage unit outside town."
"Then turn it over."
Frank shook his head.
"You don't understand. There are people who would do anything to keep that recording hidden."
Emily remembered Thomas's warnings.
She remembered Harold's trembling hands.
And she remembered her mother's letter.
"Then you should have come forward eighteen years ago."
Frank looked toward the camera.
"I was twenty-three. My father told me everything would be fine."
"Was it?"
Frank said nothing.
Emily ended the conversation and immediately informed Jonathan.
Within hours, investigators arranged to interview Frank through his attorney.
The next morning, a search warrant was executed at the storage facility.
Inside a locked metal cabinet, authorities found old videotapes, company documents, and several boxes of financial records.
One tape was labeled with the date Daniel Carter died.
But when specialists began reviewing it, they discovered the recording ended before the accident.
And someone had deliberately removed the final segment.