Page 95 of A Game of Deception

“Let’s do this,” he said quietly.

I nodded, steeling myself. Then I picked up the folder and opened it.

The first page was a handwritten note on police department stationery:

Case #94-7821 - Fatal MVA - Swanson, James (deceased)

My hands shook as I turned the pages—a detailed accident reconstruction report with diagrams, measurements, and photographs. Unlike the sanitized version in the official record, this one left nothing to the imagination. The car’s path, the angle of impact, the position of the bodies afterward—it was all there in detail.

I forced myself to read every word, absorbing the technical language that painted a picture so different from what I’d believed:

No skid marks present for minimum 50 yards prior to impact point.

Acceleration marks indicate vehicle INCREASED speed before collision.

Driver’s side sustained catastrophic impact. Passenger protected by seatbelt and airbag deployment, and deliberate positioning of seat (fully reclined, maximum distance from dashboard).

Blood alcohol level of passenger (Alexander McCrae): 0.18%

Blood alcohol level of driver (James Swanson): 0.00%

The words blurred as tears filled my eyes. I blinked them away, determined to see this through.

The next page contained Morrison’s handwritten conclusion:

Based on physical evidence, witness statements, and scene analysis, the death of James Swanson was a deliberate act of suicide. The positioning of the passenger seat, the lack of braking, and the acceleration marks all indicate the driver intentionally crashed the vehicle. The passenger (A. McCrae) was unconscious at time of impact due to intoxication and was deliberately positioned by driver to minimize injury.

Final conclusion: Suicide.

The folder slipped from my fingers, papers spilling across my lap. A strangled sound escaped my throat as the truth crashed through twelve years of certainty.

Jimmy killed himself. He had deliberately ended his own life.

And my father had covered it up.

“Tara,” Xander said softly, his voice breaking through the roaring in my ears. “Tara, look at me.”

I turned to him, vision blurred by tears. “He did it on purpose,” I whispered. “Jimmy killed himself.”

Xander reached across the console and took my hands in his. They were warm and solid when everything else seemed to be dissolving around me.

“I’m so sorry,” he said.

“Why?” The question tore from my throat. “Why would he do that? He wasn’t depressed. He wasn’t... there were no signs. I would have known. I would have seen it.”

How had I missed it?

“We were so close,” I said, my voice breaking. “I thought we told each other everything. But he was planning this, and I never saw it coming.”

Xander squeezed my hands. “Tara, you were sixteen. You can’t blame yourself for not recognizing signs that adults miss all the time.”

“But I should have known. I should have...” The words dissolved into a sob that I couldn’t suppress.

Xander unbuckled his seatbelt and awkwardly pulled me into his arms across the center console. I buried my face against his shoulder, finally letting the tears flow freely. He held me without speaking, one hand stroking my hair while I cried for the brother I’d lost twice—once to death, and now to the truth.

When the sobs finally subsided, I pulled back, wiping my face with shaking hands. “There’s more,” I said, picking up another page from the folder. “Read this.”

Xander took the paper—a statement from a witness who’d arrived at the scene moments after the crash: