THE CALL WASN’T AN ACCIDENT
Daniel stared at the telephone record for several seconds.
His number.
Five years before he had ever met Renee.
Five years before the night she called him at 2:07 A.M.
He looked up slowly.
“Renee, what is this?”
She didn’t answer.
Instead, she reached for the document with trembling fingers.
“I told you I’ve never seen this.”
Daniel pushed the paper toward her.
“Then someone put my number in your records five years ago. Why?”
Renee’s eyes remained fixed on the date.
Then she whispered something that made Daniel’s stomach tighten.
“That was the year my father died.”
Daniel frowned.
“What does your father’s death have to do with me?”
Renee stood and walked toward a locked cabinet at the back of the room.
She entered a code.
Inside was a collection of old company files.
She pulled out a thin folder.
“I never understood why my father kept this.”
She placed it on the desk.
Daniel opened it.
The first page contained the name of a company he recognized immediately.
It was the electrical contractor his late wife had worked for before she became sick.
Daniel’s hands went completely still.
“My wife worked for this company.”
“I know.”
He looked at Renee.
“How?”
Renee swallowed.
“Because my father owned it.”
The room seemed to become silent.
Daniel slowly turned another page.
There were invoices.
Employee records.
Insurance documents.
And finally, a report dated four years earlier.
The same month Daniel’s wife had died.
His breathing became heavier.
“What does this have to do with her?”
Renee pointed to a signature at the bottom of the report.
“My father ordered an investigation into an electrical fault at one of his properties.”
Daniel stared at the signature.
Then he noticed something else.
His wife’s name appeared in the witness section.
“She knew something,” Renee said quietly.
Daniel looked up.
“What did she know?”
Renee didn’t answer immediately.
Instead, she pulled out another document.
“This was never supposed to leave my father’s private records.”
Daniel unfolded it.
It was a handwritten note.
Only one sentence had been written across the page.
IF ANYTHING HAPPENS TO ME, FIND DANIEL HAYES.
Daniel stopped breathing.
His wife had been dead for four years.
And yet someone had written his name down before she died.
“Why didn’t anyone contact me?”
Renee’s face hardened.
“Because whoever was investigating my father disappeared before the investigation was finished.”
Daniel stared at her.
“And now someone is trying to take control of your company.”
“Yes.”
“And my wife’s name is somehow connected to your father.”
“Yes.”
He stepped away from the desk.
“Then the hospital call wasn’t random.”
Renee finally looked directly at him.
“No.”
Daniel’s voice dropped.
“Who made me call you?”
Renee shook her head.
“I don’t know.”
Then the lights in the mansion suddenly went out.
Every screen in the study went black.
Daniel instinctively moved toward Renee.
A second later, her phone lit up.
One message appeared.
YOU SHOULD HAVE LEFT DANIEL ALONE.
Renee stared at it.
Daniel felt a cold chill move through him.
Then another message arrived.
NOW HE’LL FIND OUT WHAT HIS WIFE DISCOVERED.
Daniel looked at Renee.
“What did my wife discover?”
Renee’s eyes filled with fear.
“I think she discovered who was responsible for her death.”
And before Daniel could say another word, someone knocked three times on the locked study door.