I drop down in the chair next to Silas’s desk.
“Does Dad know you got the video?”
He shakes his head. “No. Not yet. I’ve got to figure out how much of this I’m going to tell him. His idea of fixing problems tends to be a bit more nuclear than I’m comfortable with.” He pauses a moment, swiveling slowly toward Frank. “Okay, let’s have it.”
Emotions I can’t put a name to rush through me as I watch Frank pull a USB drive from his pocket, handing it to Silas. “I wouldn’t have found it if I hadn’t been there when Aubrey got a call from Hank Landry.”
I sit up straighter at the mention of his name. “What do you mean?”
“Apparently, he went to the Angola Rodeo today and had a little chat with Paul.” Frank fills us both in on Hank’s call to Aubrey.
I don’t know how I feel about Hank calling her about this.
Silas inserts the drive into the port on the side of his laptop while Frank moves to the door. “I’ll be outside.” And then he’s gone.
I get up from the chair and stand behind his so I can have a clear, unobstructed view. His mouse hovers over the device name but he doesn’t click on it. Putting a hand on his shoulder, I give him a gentle squeeze. Finally, he opens it up and we’re looking at a list of folders. All of them are labeled with dates going back over twenty-five years.
“Oh my God. You weren’t kidding.”
Silas doesn’t say anything, just clicks on the file name with the date that corresponds with Aubrey’s parents’ deaths. There are two files. A video file and a Word document. His fist clenches as the internal fight wages inside of him then he clicks the video file. It’s dark and grainy.
“Where is that?”
“The parking lot of the convenience store on Maple.” He points to the right side of the screen. “The accident happened right here.”
There is no movement for several seconds. The only thing visible is the empty intersection lit by a lone streetlight.
And then it happens so fast. A car, presumably Aubrey’s parents’ car, enters the screen from the left side just as a truck runs the stop sign at the intersection. We both jump when the two vehicles collide even though there is no sound on the video.
“Oh my God.” Even in black and white, it’s difficult to watch knowing the outcome.
The two vehicles spin in a full circle, and when they stop, the driver’s side of Paul’s truck is visible to the camera, the front end embedded into the passenger side of Aubrey’s parents’ car. It’s easy to see why her mother died instantly. Nothing happens for a few seconds.
I don’t realize I’m crying until Silas hands me a tissue from the box on his desk.
The driver’s-side door opens. Slowly. I glance at Silas. He’s staring intently at the screen, his jaw clenched.
A person falls out of the driver’s seat. I’m expecting to see Silas, ten years ago, but it’s not him. It’s a female. Long blond hair. She’s disoriented. And then she turns toward the store, giving us a clear shot of her.
“That fucking bitch.”
“Is that…is that Margaret?” I ask. “Was she driving?”
“It seems she was.” His voice is hard and I can almost feel the anger rolling off him.
We watch as Margaret seems to get what’s happened. She goes back to the driver’s side and leans in. It takes a few minutes, then she’s pulling someone else out of the vehicle. Silas.
He falls on the ground the second he’s more out of the truck than in.It takes her another minute or so to wake him up. She uses her shirt to wipe away the blood on his face. Once she’s gotten him on his feet, he stumbles around. He appears drunk and is probably suffering from a concussion. He seems to gather himself and looks toward the other vehicle. Takes a couple of steps in that direction. But Margaret grabs his hand, pulling him away. They disappear out of the bottom corner of the frame.
At least Silas attempted to check on them but she didn’t hesitate running from the scene without a single glance to see if anyone was hurt.
There is no movement from Aubrey’s parents’ car. Silas told me her dad, who was driving the car, didn’t die upon impact. He bled out. And he has lived with the regret of not getting him immediate medical attention.
Silas’s mouth is set in a hard line. “The first thing I remember is falling through the window at Ben’s house. She was freaking out. Ben was confused. She started talking about the accident. I just assumed I had been driving. Said something like—You shouldn’t have let me drive like this. And she never corrected me. All these fucking years she allowed me to believe I was the driver—that I killed those two people.”
The video ends abruptly. Silas makes a few keystrokes and the document is open. It’s a typed letter from Kevin Foster.
To whom it may concern regarding the case of Paul Granger:
