The airport noise disappeared around him.
For several seconds, Marcus couldn’t speak.
Then he whispered:
“Send it to me.”
Sarah did.
Marcus watched the recording.
Phyllis was sitting at the kitchen table.
His uncle was across from her.
“We can’t keep waiting,” his uncle said.
Phyllis sighed.
“Then we’ll have to make him choose.”
Marcus closed his eyes.
The accident had happened five days earlier.
He suddenly wondered whether it had really been an accident.
He immediately called his attorney.
“I need you to do something for me.”
“What happened?”
“I need an investigator to look into my wife’s accident.”
There was silence.
“Are you saying you suspect it wasn’t accidental?”
“I’m saying I don’t know yet.”
“That distinction matters.”
“I know.”
Marcus looked at the video again.
“I just know that my mother has been planning something for months.”
His attorney’s voice became serious.
“Don’t confront her.”
“I won’t.”
“Don’t delete anything.”
“I won’t.”
“And don’t let her know what you have.”
Marcus looked through the terminal window at the plane waiting to take him home.
“I won’t.”
Then his phone buzzed.
A message from Sarah.
Marcus, Clara just asked me something strange.
He immediately replied.
What?
Sarah answered:
She asked if your mother had ever told you about the night your father died.
Marcus stared at the message.
His father had died twelve years earlier.
Everyone had always said it was a heart attack.
But suddenly, for the first time in his life, Marcus wondered why Clara would ask that.
He called Sarah.
“What exactly did Clara say?”
“She said your mother once told her that your father’s death wasn’t what everyone thought.”
Marcus’s blood ran cold.
“What else?”
“She said she never told you because your mother threatened her.”
Marcus sat completely still.
Then Sarah whispered:
“Marcus… I think your mother has been hiding something from you for a very long time.”
And for the first time, Marcus realized the 47-second video wasn’t the beginning of the story.
It was only the moment when the truth finally started coming to light.
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