Then he looked at me.
“I am sorry,” he whispered.
Silas’s voice hardened.
“Do not say another word.”
Dean flinched.
Detective Miller positioned himself between them.
“Mr.
Rusk is cooperating with investigators.”
Silas laughed, but the sound lacked its earlier confidence.
“He is a disgruntled employee.
Ask him how many times he threatened me after I fired him.”
“Twice,” Dean said.
“And both times I was drunk.
I admitted that.
But I did not know there were children in the car.”
The room seemed to contract around us.
I gripped the back of a chair.
Dean swallowed.
“Silas gave me the key to Leah’s sedan.
He said it belonged to an employee who was trying to blackmail him.
He told me to disable the dashboard brake warning so she would be stranded and embarrassed during a business meeting.”
“You are lying,” Silas said.
Dean kept speaking.
He had met Silas in the underground garage of Fletcher Transport.
Silas had provided a company van, tools, and a printed schedule showing when Leah would collect Rose and Eli from school.
Dean claimed he removed the warning sensor but refused to damage the brakes themselves.
The next morning, he found another ten thousand dollars in his account.
He called Silas.
Silas told him to forget the job had ever happened.
Detective Miller placed a sealed laboratory report on the table.
“The sedan was recovered from the ravine last week,” he said.
“Our first inspection focused on weather and road conditions.
The second inspection found a cut in the rear brake line.
Tool marks do not match Mr.
Rusk’s equipment.”
Silas folded his arms.
“So your own witness admits he tampered with the car.
Charge him.”
“We intend to charge everyone supported by the evidence,” Miller replied.
“That includes the person who finished the work after Mr.
Rusk left.”
He signaled to an officer, who advanced the traffic footage frame by frame.
A second recording appeared.
It came from a car wash camera six miles from the crash site.
The black SUV entered at 6:43 that morning.
Margot sat behind the wheel.
Silas stood beside the passenger door wearing the dark wool coat he had worn when police notified him about our children’s deaths.
He leaned into the SUV, handed Margot something small, and kissed her.
The camera caught his face clearly.
A murmur rolled through the chapel.
Silas’s mother covered her mouth.
Margot stared at the screen, then at him.
“You said that camera had been erased.”
He seized her wrist.
An officer stepped forward.
