Part 4 — Three seconds before my master’s wedding, I told him about his death, but when his bride looked at the phone left in my hand, she stopped

And I realized that the wedding hall was only the first trap. The real danger was already waiting outside, and Griffin still did not know in whose name that second car had been hired.

David ran to the curtain and looked at the street.

“A black car is standing at the western entrance,” he said. “Its number is covered.”

Griffin put the phone on the table.

“Lock all the doors.”

Celeste’s voice suddenly changed. A few minutes earlier she had been a confident woman. Now her eyes darted from side to side.

“Griffin, I did not know about the second car.”

“Now I know that you knew about the first car.”

“Adrian planned this.”

“And you agreed.”

Adrian ran a hand over his face.

“Celeste, tell him who is driving that car.”

“You should know.”

“I only prepared the money!”

“And I only arranged the wedding!”

Their shouting collided with each other. I looked at the tray lying on the floor. The little engraved sign of a swallow was visible in the dust. I picked it up and put it into my apron.

Just then Griffin’s lawyer, Mr. Harper, looked toward me.

“Griffin, we have to leave here.”

“No,” I said. “If we leave now, the second car will get exactly what it is expecting.”

Harper knitted his brows.

“Who do you think you are?”

“A person who knows that your driver is not in those recordings.”

David looked at me quickly.

“What does that mean?”

“The driver’s name was not in Celeste’s phone. There was only the car number. Whoever hired the second car knew the hotel’s internal schedule. He knew that Griffin would leave through the western exit.”

Griffin looked at Harper.

“Who knew my schedule?”

Harper did not answer.

His silence turned out to be louder than any confession.

David pointed the gun at him.

“Slowly put the phone on the table.”

Harper rubbed his hand over his face.

“I was only preparing documents.”

“Documents?” Griffin whispered.

“Life insurance documents. Celeste told me that you agreed. Then Adrian told me that I had to obtain the signature in any case.”

“And the second car?” I asked.

Harper lowered his eyes.

“The car was hired in the name of my security company by a person whom I thought had Griffin’s order.”

“Who was it?” Griffin asked.

Harper bit his lips.

“Your former driver. Thomas.”

Griffin’s face hardened. Several years earlier Thomas had saved his life in a parking lot. Griffin had bought him a house.

“Call him,” he said.

Harper shook his head.

“It is already too late.”

At that moment the sound of tires was heard outside. David opened the window. The black car quickly pulled away from the sidewalk and disappeared around the corner of the street.

The police entered ten minutes later.

Celeste immediately ran toward Griffin.

“Please, do not leave me. I loved you.”

Griffin stepped back.

“Love does not plan my funeral.”

“I wanted money, nothing more.”

“That ‘nothing more’ was enough to kill me.”

Adrian hid his hands from the police officer, but it was already too late. David handed all the recordings to the investigator. Harper himself called the prosecutor and said that he would testify.

No one got married that night.

The next morning we gathered in a small listening room in Griffin’s house. A screen shone on the walls. Beside it stood a recorder to which the police had attached files copied from a body camera.

Adrian was forced to listen to his own words.

“When he dies, everything will become mine too.”

His voice sounded in the room.

Adrian raised his head.

“I did not say it like that.”

David played the recording from the beginning.

“We have already tampered with the brakes. The road will do the rest.”

Adrian heard his own voice and his face changed. For the first time he realized that his greatest enemy was neither Griffin nor me.

It was his voice.

“I was just saying,” he whispered. “It was only a plan.”

“A plan that a person was following,” I said.

Celeste sat in the other room and begged the lawyer.

“I will pay you. Double. Triple.”

Harper shook his head.

“I am no longer participating in this case.”

“You are my lawyer!”

“I was. Now I am a witness.”

Celeste picked up the phone and called me. When I saw the number on the screen, I simply looked at it for several seconds.

“Elene,” she said when I answered, “you do not know what you have done.”

“I know.”

“Griffin will blame you one day anyway. You forced your way into his life.”

“I forced my way into his life, not his living.”

“Do you want money?”

“No.”

“Then why?”

I went to the window. The morning light spread across the floor.

“Because my father had to have someone at the end who would carry his truth all the way.”

Celeste lowered her voice.

“Your father was betrayed by Griffin himself.”

Those words pierced my heart.

“Do you have proof?”

“Find the fifth safe. In your father’s old office.”

The call ended.

That same day I went to the office. The fifth safe was hidden behind the wall, behind an old wooden board of the bookcase. I found the key in the handle of the tray—under the little swallow that I had considered only decoration for years.

There was one folder in the safe.

It said that my father had never testified against Griffin. On the contrary, he had left Griffin a letter and asked him to investigate Adrian’s financial fraud. Griffin did so, but my father died of a heart attack that same night. The letter never reached its addressee. Harper hid it because he was taking money from Adrian.

Griffin read the letter and said nothing for a long time.

“All these years I thought your father wanted my downfall,” he said at last.

“He only wanted to protect the truth.”

“And after his death I no longer searched for answers.”

“Now you know.”

He lowered his head.

“Thank you for saving me.”

“I do not need thanks. I only want you never to hire anyone to save me again.”

The case continued for months. Celeste partially confessed to the crime and refused a deal. Adrian finally testified in order to have his sentence reduced. Harper opened all the accounts. Thomas was found in another state and did not resist at the time of his arrest.

I left Chicago.

Three months later I started working at a financial consulting office in a small seaside town. In the mornings I opened the window, made coffee, and washed my hands with soap, although this time the smell no longer frightened me.

Griffin gave part of his company to a foundation named after his father. With the remaining money he helped the people harmed by Adrian’s fraud.

One evening he called me again.

“Elene, you can come back.”

“No.”

“Only one meeting.”

“Griffin, I did not run away from you. I came toward myself.”

There was a long silence on the other side.

“Are you happy?”

My little nephew sat by the window and was drawing a swallow on paper. He held a pencil in his hand, and beyond the window the first snow was falling.

“For the first time I am at peace,” I told him.

“Then I will not call you anymore.”

“That will be a good gift.”

He smiled quietly. I could not see the smile, but I understood.

The call ended.

Several weeks later my nephew brought me a drawing. The swallow was raising one wing upward, as if freeing itself from the wind.

I put the tray on my desk. The little swallow engraved on its edge shone in the light of the snow.

That night, for the first time, I no longer thought that in order to save someone’s life I had to lose my own life.

The swallow flew away.