Chapter 3 - The Truth About David
I pushed through the bus station doors.
“Dad!”
Jordan chased me.
“Marcus, wait!”
My father turned.
For two years, I had imagined what I would say if I could see him one more time.
I had dreamed about hugging him.
Telling him I missed him.
Asking if he was proud of me.
None of those thoughts survived the moment I saw him walking away.
“Dad!”
He stopped beside a black SUV.
I reached him breathless.
Up close, there was no doubt.
Thomas Reed.
My father.
Older.
Thinner.
A fresh line across his forehead.
But alive.
“You let me bury you.”
His face tightened.
“I’m sorry.”
“You let me stand beside an empty coffin!”
“It wasn’t empty.”
I recoiled.
“What?”
“There were remains.”
“Whose?”
He glanced around.
“Not here.”
I grabbed his jacket.
“Whose body did I cry over?”
“Marcus.”
“WHO?”
Jordan finally reached us.
Dad looked at him.
“You shouldn’t have brought anyone.”
“He’s my friend.”
“Friends become liabilities.”
I released him.
“What does that mean?”
Dad looked toward the station.
“We need to leave.”
“I’m not going anywhere with you.”
“You called me Dad ten seconds ago.”
“That was before you told me someone else was in your coffin.”
Pain flickered across his face.
Or maybe he wanted me to think it did.
“You’re just like your mother.”
I stiffened.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Emotional before rational.”
That sentence unlocked an old memory.
Mom standing in the kitchen years ago.
Dad saying, “Elaine, stop being emotional.”
Mom crying over a credit card statement.
Dad telling me privately that she was “bad with money.”
Another memory surfaced.
Mom asking why Dad had a second phone.
Dad laughing.
Another.
A broken dining chair.
Mom saying she had knocked it over.
I suddenly felt less certain.
Headlights swept across us.
A pickup truck entered the parking lot.
Dad stepped back.
“You need to come with me now.”
“No.”
“Marcus.”
“No!”
He grabbed my wrist.
Jordan moved between us.
“Let him go.”
Dad stared at Jordan.
“This has nothing to do with you.”
“It does now.”
Dad released me.
Then the pickup stopped.
David jumped out.
Mom was in the passenger seat.
“Marcus!” she screamed.
Dad’s expression changed instantly.
He opened the SUV door.
David ran toward us.
“Thomas!”
Dad reached inside the vehicle.
David stopped.
His hands rose.
“Don’t.”
I couldn’t see what Dad was reaching for.
Mom ran from the pickup.
“Marcus, come here!”
Dad looked at me.
“Choose carefully.”
There it was again.
Choose.
Mom or him.
Truth or lies.
I stepped away from Dad.
His face went cold.
“You’ll regret that.”
David positioned himself between us.
“Leave the kid out of this.”
Dad laughed.
“You always did like pretending to be the hero.”
David’s jaw tightened.
“And you always liked hiding behind your family.”
Dad got into the SUV.
Before driving away, he lowered the window.
“Marcus.”
I looked at him.
“Ask David where he was the night I went off that bridge.”
Then he disappeared.
Mom reached me.
Her arms went around me.
For half a second, I let her hold me.
Then I remembered the insurance documents.
I pushed her away.
“You knew.”
She froze.
“You knew he was alive.”
Tears filled her eyes.
“Yes.”
My chest caved in.
“How long?”
“Six months.”
“You lied to me for six months?”
“I was protecting you.”
“Stop saying that!”
People nearby turned.
I didn’t care.
“You collected his insurance.”
“Yes.”
“You met David in secret.”
“Yes.”
“You threw me out because I tried to protect you from him!”
Mom covered her mouth.
“That wasn’t—”
“Who is David?”
She looked at him.
David’s shoulders dropped.
“My brother,” he said.
I stared.
“Your what?”
“Thomas is my younger brother.”
The parking lot seemed to tilt.
David was my uncle.
Dad’s brother.
A man I had never heard about.
“You don’t exist.”
David gave a humorless laugh.
“To Thomas, I didn’t.”
“Why?”
Mom answered.
“Because David testified against your father.”
“When?”
“Before you were born.”
David leaned against the truck.
“Thomas and I worked construction with our father. Eventually Thomas started running side businesses. Fake invoices. Stolen materials. Insurance fraud.”
“No.”
“Marcus,” Mom said softly.
“No.”
I pointed at David.
“You expect me to believe Dad was some criminal?”
David met my eyes.
“I expect you to believe evidence.”
He pulled out his phone.
Mom touched his arm.
“David.”
“He needs it.”
David showed me an old photograph.
Two young men stood outside a construction yard.
One was obviously Dad.
The other was David.
Same eyes.
Same jaw.
Brothers.
Then David showed me a court document.
UNITED STATES v. THOMAS REED.
My father’s name.
Charges reduced.
Insufficient evidence after a key witness recanted.
“Who recanted?” I asked.
David’s voice became quiet.
“Our father.”
“Grandpa?”
“Yes.”
I barely remembered Grandpa Reed.
He died when I was eight.
David continued.
“Thomas blamed me for the investigation. He told your mother I was a drug addict and a thief. He made sure I disappeared from the family.”
“And you let him?”
“I thought distance would protect everyone.”
Mom looked at him.
“It didn’t.”
I turned toward her.
“The insurance.”
Mom wiped her cheeks.
“I didn’t know he was alive when I accepted it.”
“Then why transfer three hundred thousand dollars?”
Her face changed.
“What transfer?”
I showed her the copy.
She stared at it.
“That isn’t my signature.”
“It looks exactly like it.”
“Because your father practiced it for twenty years.”
David nodded.
“Thomas controlled the finances.”
My anger faltered.
“The photograph of you handing Mom an envelope?”
“Police reports,” David said. “Bank records. Everything I had found since learning Thomas survived.”
“Why not go straight to the police?”
“We did.”
My eyes widened.
Mom looked exhausted.
“Marcus, your father is under investigation.”
“For what?”
David answered.
“Fraud. Identity theft. Witness intimidation. And possibly murder.”
I stared at him.
“Murder?”
“The body in your father’s coffin belonged to someone.”
My stomach turned.
David looked toward Mom.
She nodded reluctantly.
“A man named Aaron Pike disappeared the same night Thomas supposedly died.”
I remembered the coffin.
The flowers.
My hand pressed against polished wood.
“Was Dad responsible?”
“We don’t know yet,” David said.
“But you think he was.”
“I think your father is capable of things you’ve never seen.”
My phone buzzed.
All four of us looked down.
Dad.
A photograph appeared.
It had been taken minutes earlier.
It showed Mom hugging me in the parking lot.
Underneath, Dad had written:
She’s lying again.
Then another message appeared.
Ask her what happened the night she tried to leave me.
Mom saw it.
Every bit of color vanished from her face.
David whispered, “Elaine?”
I looked at Mom.
“What happened?”
She backed away.
“Marcus…”
“What happened the night you tried to leave Dad?”
May you like
Mom started crying before she answered.
And suddenly I realized there was another part of my childhood I had never been told.
