“No. Joe never brought her up again. He said he didn’t even know where she was. I was curious, of course. But back then, you couldn’t simply jump on the internet and search for someone. So this is the first time I’ve heard her name since that day. How did you find out about her?”
“She was listed in one of Joe’s old financial papers,” I lied.
“Does Taylor know about Greta?” Carol whispered.
I shook my head. “No, I just came upon the name today.”
“Please don’t tell her, Alex. I don’t want her to think any less of her father.”
“People get divorced, Carol. It’s not a scarlet letter.”
“I know. But if she finds out now, after all this time, she’ll probably wonder why her father never told her in the first place. For some reason, Joe just didn’t want her to know about his first marriage. And I don’t want her thinking he wasn’t always honest with her. Honesty was a really big deal between them. Okay?”
“Okay. I’ll keep it to myself.”
“Thank you.”
I wanted to say, But he wasn’t always honest—with any of us. To lengths none of us could possibly fathom. Instead, I kept my mouth shut. But I could see now how family lies could spread like a destructive virus through generations. Which made my current position with Taylor feel even more excruciating.
TWENTY-TWO
After getting the girls down for bed, I told Taylor I was going over to her parents’ house to grab a few framed photos to use in the presentation. Instead, I drove straight to the storage facility where my father-in-law kept his old boxes of legal files. I pressed in the code at the security gate and then parked in a spot outside of the two-story building. It was after dark, and the parking lot was empty. I pressed more codes at the building door to get inside, took the stairs up to the second level, and once again found myself standing in front of the various stacks of boxes. I knew right where to search this time.
I found the two boxes labeled Bruce Gibson & Daniel Gibson, Attorneys-at-Law, and popped open the lids on both. First, I searched for the thirty-five-year-old letter from Greta in the back of the second box. I read it again and stuck it in my pocket. Then I began pulling out the files from the boxes. They were all from the same client: Grande Distributors. I found a file labeled Company Info and discovered that Grande Distributors had been based out of Mexico City with a distribution center in El Paso. The company mostly stored and transported appliances and electronics to and from Mexico. I did a quick Google search on my phone. The company still existed all these years later and appeared to have grown massive in size and in scope.
I looked deeper into the files. From what I could tell, Joe and his father had represented the company on about a dozen general-litigation matters over about a year’s worth of time—so not long. Mostly disputes with truck drivers and issues with wholesalers and vendors. I pored over every word in these files, wondering if one of them could’ve entailed the mysterious multimillion-dollar settlement. I had skimmed them during my previous visit to the storage unit because they didn’t have Joe’s name on them. I reached the last file in the second box and found nothing related to a big settlement, nothing unusual at all about the files. So why had Joe secretly taken them from his old office after his supposed death thirty-five years ago?
I packed up the two boxes and put them back with the stacks of others. Then I closed the garage door to the unit and hit the stairs again. Inside the stairwell, I paused and stared out a window to the outside parking lot where I could see my Tahoe parked in its spot. I noticed that a black Ford Explorer was now parked across the parking lot. It had not been there when I’d entered the building. That didn’t necessarily concern me. Renters could come and go whenever they pleased. What did concern me was that I could see someone sitting in the shadows of the vehicle behind the steering wheel. The glow of a phone screen cast a slight bit of light on the driver’s face. But it wasn’t enough to tell anything about the driver. Plus, the driver wore a cap with the bill pulled down low.
Why was someone just sitting there? A passenger could be inside the storage building, and the driver was simply waiting on them. But then why park away from the building instead of up close like me? I was understandably feeling more paranoid since my meeting with Brian in Dallas and knowing I had stood face-to-face with a killer while inside my in-laws’ house the other night. I watched for another minute or so, waiting for movement of some kind—either the driver finally leaving, or someone coming out of the building and jumping in the passenger seat. But neither happened. I left my spot near the window and continued to descend to the ground floor. Then I pushed through the door to the parking lot. As I circled my Tahoe, I cast another quick glance toward the Explorer. But it was too difficult to tell if I was being watched.