Chapter 11 - THE TRAITOR IN MY HOUSE
Briggs looked older.
Thinner.
But I recognized his posture immediately.
Some habits never disappear.
Harris ordered me to stay away.
I ignored him.
Not recklessly.
Strategically.
There was something inside my house Victor wanted.
If Briggs found it first, twenty years of secrets might disappear forever.
Federal agents were seven minutes out.
I needed six.
Rick remained with Dustin in the supermarket parking lot while I took Harris on speaker and approached my street from the rear.
No heroics.
No revenge.
Just answers.
The back gate was open.
That told me Briggs expected me.
Inside, the house looked untouched.
Then I heard his voice.
“Still walk too quietly, Frank.”
He stood in my living room holding the gray metal case.
“Put it down.”
He smiled sadly.
“You really never opened it.”
“No.”
“For sixteen years?”
“I trusted you.”
That smile vanished.
There it was.
The wound beneath everything.
Trust.
“Why did you give it to me?”
“Insurance.”
“Against Victor?”
“Against everyone.”
He set the case on the table.
“I discovered what Victor was doing with contractors and local officials. By then I was involved too deeply.”
“So you hid evidence with me.”
“You were the one man I knew nobody could buy.”
“Then why target my family?”
“I didn’t.”
“Victor knew Evelyn was my daughter.”
Briggs looked genuinely shocked.
That frightened me.
“He wasn’t supposed to know about her.”
“Dustin was ordered to date her.”
Briggs whispered a curse.
“He changed the plan.”
“What plan?”
Before he could answer, glass shattered upstairs.
Briggs reached beneath his jacket.
I moved.
“Don’t.”
He froze.
Footsteps crossed the second floor.
Someone else was inside.
Briggs whispered, “Victor.”
A voice called from upstairs.
“Touching reunion.”
Victor descended the staircase.
He was smaller than I imagined.
Expensive suit.
Silver hair.
A smile with no warmth.
Two armed men came behind him.
“I’ve waited a long time, Frank.”
“For a box?”
“For what’s inside it.”
Briggs stepped toward him.
“This ends tonight.”
Victor laughed.
“It ended sixteen years ago. You were simply too cowardly to accept it.”
He pointed toward the case.
“Open it.”
I did.
Inside were folders, photographs, and an old encrypted hard drive.
But beneath them was something nobody expected.
A sealed envelope.
My name was written across it.
In Briggs’s handwriting.
I opened it.
Inside was a photograph of Victor.
Much younger.
Standing beside Briggs.
May you like
And beside them was someone I recognized from childhood.
My father.
