Page 166 of Untouchable

And there was nothing left except to play them out on this stage, get through to the end of the story, when dead bodies would finally litter the floor, signaling the final gasp and applause.

“Okay.” Kelly seemed to be trapped in it too, her intensity of before coiling into something tight and shaky. “Where?”

“My house.”

“I’ll drive myself there.”

Caleb was relieved since he didn’t want to face a long car ride with Kelly and he needed time to pull himself together again. Without another word, Kelly picked up her keys and purse and followed him out of her apartment and down to the lobby.

There they parted, and Caleb tried to use the quiet drive to figure out what he should say, what he should do, what he should feel.

But it was no use. He drove on autopilot, and he couldn’t remember anything about the road or the traffic when he pulled through the gate to his house. He’d been in a numb stupor thewhole time, and he didn’t have any clearer sense of what to do than he’d had when he’d left.

Kelly arrived about five minutes after him. He was waiting at the front door for her.

She looked pale and mostly controlled and still a little shaky as she followed him into his home office, where he pulled the latch that released the bookcase to reveal his hidden safe.

He unlocked it, swung open the door, and reached in to pull out an old-school digital audio recorder. Seventeen years ago, it was high-end equipment, small enough to record conversations covertly.

He handed it to her.

“What is this?”

“Proof. The proof you’ve been looking for.”

“Proof of what?”

“Of who really arranged for your father’s death.”

His office was eerily silent as she hit Play.

Voices from the past crackled as they filled the silence.

“What the hell happened?” The first voice was Caleb’s, and it was stretched with anger, fear, and confusion. He remembered very well how he’d felt so many years ago as he’d seen event after event transpire, telling a dark story.

“What are you talking about?” That was Arthur Marshall. His own father.

“I had things under control, Dad. I had it taken care of. Now I’ve just heard he was killed, and Vinnie says he doesn’t know what happened.”

“Vinnie doesn’t know. And there’s nothing for you to know either.”

“Did you kill him? Did you have him killed?”

“Do not ask me questions like that out loud.”

“I want to know.”

“Your mom reached out to her uncle. Roman took care of our difficulty. We no longer have a problem. That’s all you need to know.”

“But I already had it taken care of—without anyone getting hurt. There was absolutely no reason for this… this…”

“You know what’s at stake. You know what would happen if certain things came to light. All of us would be ruined. The company wouldn’t survive it. I wouldn’t. You wouldn’t either. We did what had to be done, and I don’t want to hear from you about this again.”

“But, Dad?—”

“That is all.”

The first recording ended, and the office fell into silence again.