“Did they ever say what caused the crash?”
She twisted her mouth up. “I’m not really sure. I think something with the engine catching on fire. After it happened, I was busy trying to do whatever I could to close the firm while helping transition all our clients. I knew Bruce and Daniel would want me to do that. It probably took me a month before I was able to close the doors for good. Such a strange thing to shut down an entire law firm all by myself. But I did my best.”
“I assume you went to their funeral services?”
“Of course. They had a joint service. It was so sad. Daniel had just gotten married. A beautiful young lady named Greta. She was clearly devastated.”
“Did you keep in touch with Greta?”
“No, she moved away not long after.”
“Were there other family members there?”
“That’s part of what made it sad. I guess Bruce didn’t have much family. His wife had died when Daniel was little, and he never remarried. I think there might’ve been a long-lost uncle or something. But that was all. It was mostly friends and business associates—which they had plenty of both.”
I tried to figure out how to transition from the facts of the plane crash to the revelation that Daniel Gibson seemed to have actually somehow survived. “Did anyone else travel with them to El Paso?”
“No, the plane was only a two-seater. Bruce offered to take me up once, but I declined. I was so scared of flying back then. After the crash, it took me a long time to get back on any airplane. But then my kids got married and moved away. And soon there were grandkids. Nothing like a grandbaby to help you get over your fears. Now I fly all over the place.”
If my father-in-law had not been on that two-seater plane with his father upon takeoff, then who had? It felt surreal to even be pondering such possibilities. My pursuit of answers about Joe’s money had led me down a twisting rabbit hole I could have never anticipated. I had no idea how I was going to find my way out of it now without continuing to press forward in search of the truth.
“Did you discover anything unusual while you were spending that month trying to close down the firm?” I asked her.
Her brow bunched. “Unusual?”
“About their cases or anything in their files?”
“Not that I recall. Honestly, I didn’t spend too much time going through their cases. I was just trying to box everything up appropriately.”
“What did you do with the boxes?”
“I stored them in my garage for a while. Wasn’t sure if I needed to hold on to them or not. I asked another lawyer friend, and he told me to do that, just in case. After a few years, I had them all shredded. Well, except for two of them.”
“What happened to those two?”
“They got stolen from the office. Can you believe that? A few days after the accident, I came into the office late one night because I’d forgotten something at my desk. When I got there, I noticed a light was on in our back conference room. We only had a small office suite with a couple of rooms for Bruce and Daniel and a conference room in the back. I always made it a habit to turn off the lights, so I was surprised to see the glow from the back. When I walked back there to take a look, some guy was climbing out the window to the parking lot. Scared me to death, so I quickly called the police. After reviewing everything, I realized two boxes I’d packed were missing.”
“You think the guy stole them?”
“I do. Back then, I was as sharp as a whip. I took tremendous pride in my organizational skills. I had logged each box I was packing away. Two of them on my log were gone. I have no other explanation for it.”
“Do you recall what was inside those boxes?”
“I don’t remember,” she said, shaking her head.
I tossed out one more question. “Lorena, was there anything suspicious about the plane crash?”
“What do you mean?”
“After it happened, were there ever any rumors floating around about other reasons the plane might have crashed besides engine failure? Or if there might have actually been, uh . . . survivors?”
She kind of frowned at me. “No, I never heard such things.”
I played it off. “Just curious. Over time, these stories have a way of taking on different forms depending on whom you talk with.”
I saw her kind of look off for a moment, as if thinking about something and hesitant to tell me for some reason.
“What is it?” I asked.
She leaned forward in her chair, like she was going to tell me a secret and didn’t want anyone else to hear. “Well, I don’t know about rumors and all of that. But between you and me—and I didn’t even tell the police this the night those boxes were stolen because I knew they’d think I was crazy. But for a brief moment, I could’ve sworn the guy jumping out of the conference room window and running away was Daniel. I never really saw his face up close, but he wore a black hoodie just like Daniel always used to wear. It was only a split second, and then the guy was out the window and long gone. Probably just my mind’s way of processing the grief of it all. But it was so strange.”