Rebirth; it’s too late, Dear ex のすべてのチャプター: チャプター 41 - チャプター 50

Kara’s POV. “I need to think about this before I respond,” I said. Xavier read the message again over my shoulder. “She says she was wrong about what you are. Which means she had a version of you in her head and watching the case changed it.” “Or she’s been sent to find out what I know about her,” I said. “Irish and Victoria are in the country she fled to. If Irish found out Arthur told me about Constance, she would send a message through Constance herself to get ahead of it.” “Irish can’t control Constance from abroad the same way she could here,” Xavier said. “The moment Irish left the country, Constance lost her cover. She becomes the only person still standing in New York with direct knowledge of the accident.” I thought about that. Constance had driven the car. For thirty years she had lived inside that. Worked in education, presumably taught children, built a quiet life with another person’s last name while carrying the specific weight of knowing she had taken two lives and

Kara’s POV. “Your father saved his life,” Xavier said the next morning. He was reading Ashford’s message over my shoulder while I made coffee. “What does that mean exactly?” “I don’t know yet,” I said. “But I’m going to find out.” I poured two cups. Outside the window the city was doing its morning thing, ordinary and indifferent and completely unaware that two days ago everything that needed to change had changed. I had slept. Actual, real, uninterrupted sleep. I could feel the difference in my body, the absence of the particular weight that had been sitting in my chest since the first morning of this second life. Something had shifted in the night and I was different on the other side of it. Not finished. Different. “Constance first,” I said. “Then Daniel Park.” “Two conversations in one day,” Xavier said. “I’ve had worse days.” I handed him his coffee. “Both of these people want to talk to me. That’s different from every conversation I’ve been having for the past several wee

Kara’s POV. “She’s coming back,” I said out loud. “Irish is coming back.” Park was reading the message over my shoulder. His expression didn’t change but something behind his eyes sharpened. “She left because she thought she was losing,” I said. “She’s coming back because she thinks she has something that changes that.” I put my phone down. “Which means she’s had it this whole time and chose to run with it rather than use it before the hearing.” “Why run first?” Xavier asked. “Because she couldn’t use it safely from here,” I said. “Whatever she has required her to be out of reach before she revealed it. Out of the federal jurisdiction. Out of the immediate blast radius.” I looked at Park. “She went to get something. Something she couldn’t access from New York.” Park leaned back in his chair slowly. “The second drive.” I stared at him. “Your father gave me one,” he said carefully. “But I’ve been wondering for three years whether there was another. David was meticulous. He built

Kara’s POV. “Victoria is in New York,” I said. “Right now. Alone.” The three of us stood in Park’s office and the news was still spreading outside and Irish was in federal custody and Victoria had just landed forty minutes ago in the same city I was standing in. “Where would she go?” Xavier asked. I thought about it. Not for long. I knew Victoria the way you know someone who has spent years performing friendship at close range. I knew her patterns, her instincts, what she reached for when everything else collapsed. “Jeremy,” I said. “She’d go to Jeremy.” Xavier was already calling. He got through in two rings. “Is Victoria there?” he asked without preamble. A pause on the other end. Then Jeremy’s voice, tighter than it had been in any of our recent communications: “She showed up twenty minutes ago. She’s in the living room. She says she has nowhere else to go.” Xavier looked at me. I took the phone. “Jeremy. Don’t let her leave. Don’t tell her what we know. Just keep her ther

Kara’s POV. “She’s been charged,” Ashford said. “Irish Devonte. Formally. The federal prosecutor moved fast. Conspiracy to commit fraud, obstruction of justice, and three counts related to the suppression of evidence in a wrongful death investigation.” It was the following morning. I was at Ashford’s office, coffee in hand, Xavier beside me, and the news coming through Ashford’s screen felt like water finally reaching the level it was supposed to reach. “What about Slate?” I asked. “His charges are separate and more extensive,” Ashford said. “The federal case now covers three confirmed victim families across a thirty-year period. Daniel Park’s three-year file, combined with your father’s documentation, combined with the cooperative statements from Brittany, Constance, and Slate’s own voluntary declaration, has given the prosecutor a case they’re describing internally as airtight.” He looked at me over his glasses. “Leonard Graves has been contacted. He’s retained counsel. He is not