Chapter Five — What Her Father Never Told Her - She Drove Him Into the Dark
By Hasnainhr
Maya read the document again while the police vehicle carried her through rain-darkened Melbourne. Michael Carter. Confidential Witness Statement. Victor Hale. Adrian Mercer. Two serving members of Victoria Police. Primary interviewing officer: Detective Daniel Reid. The words should not have belonged together. Her father had sold insurance policies, complained about football commentators, forgotten birthdays, repaired things around the house badly and died after what doctors had called a massive stroke. He had never mentioned Victor Hale. He had never mentioned Adrian Mercer. He had certainly never told Maya that he had once been a confidential police witness.
The officer beside her shifted in his seat. “Ms Carter, are you feeling all right?”
Maya locked her phone. “Fine.”
She was becoming disturbingly good at saying the word.
Daniel’s sedan remained twenty metres ahead. Maya stared through the windscreen at its red taillights and imagined him sitting behind the wheel knowing exactly what her father had done nine years earlier. He had stood inside her apartment less than an hour ago and asked whether Victor knew her family. He had specifically asked about Luke. He had acted as though the connection between Victor Hale and Maya Carter was something he was trying to discover.
He had lied.
Not by saying something false.
By carefully arranging the truth so Maya would reach the wrong conclusion.
Her phone vibrated again.
The anonymous sender had written only one sentence.
Ask Daniel why your father stopped cooperating.
Maya typed immediately.
Who are you?
This time she sent it.
No reply.
She tried another.
Did you send the witness statement?
Nothing.
She watched the three dots appear for half a second, then disappear.
The police car turned through a quiet intersection. Daniel’s sedan signalled ahead and entered an underground car park beneath a modern apartment building in Carlton.
Maya frowned.
This did not look like a police station.
The officer beside her said, “We’re stopping here.”
“Why?”
“Detective Reid will explain.”
“I’m starting to dislike that sentence.”
The vehicle descended into the basement and stopped beside Daniel’s sedan. Daniel was already out when Maya opened her door.
She walked directly toward him.
He saw her expression and stopped.
“What happened?”
Maya held up her phone. “You tell me.”
Daniel looked at the screen.
She opened the document.
For the first time since meeting him, Maya watched his composure disappear completely.
Not dramatically. Daniel did not gasp or step backward. His face simply became still.
Too still.
“You knew my father.”
Daniel looked at the officers standing nearby. “Inside.”
“No.”
“Maya.”
“You ask me questions in corridors, outside apartments and at three in the morning. You can answer one in a car park.”
Daniel lowered his voice. “Not here.”
“Why?”
“Because someone just sent you a confidential police statement that should not exist outside a restricted archive.”
“That sounds like your problem.”
“It became yours when they sent it to you.”
“It became mine nine years ago, apparently. Nobody bothered mentioning it.”
Daniel’s jaw tightened.
Maya stepped closer. “Did you know Michael Carter?”
“Yes.”
The answer hurt more than she expected.
“How well?”
“Well enough.”
“What does that mean?”
Daniel glanced at the officers. “Give us the basement.”
One of them started to object.
Daniel repeated, “Please.”
They moved toward the lift lobby.
Maya waited until they were alone.
“You interviewed my father.”
“Yes.”
“You knew Victor.”
“Yes.”
“You knew Victor knew my father.”
“Yes.”
“And when you came to my apartment, you pretended none of that existed.”
“I did not pretend.”
“You asked whether Victor knew my family.”
“I needed to know how much Victor had told you.”
“So you were testing me.”
“Yes.”
“At least that answer is honest.”
Daniel looked tired.
Maya held up the phone. “Why was my father a witness?”
Daniel hesitated.
“Don’t tell me you can’t discuss it.”
“I can discuss part of it.”
“Generous.”
“Your father worked in commercial insurance.”
“I know what he did.”
“He specialised in large property and development policies for several years before moving into management.”
Maya frowned. Her father had rarely discussed work beyond complaining about clients and paperwork.
Daniel continued, “One of the companies his firm insured was connected to Hale Urban Group.”
“Victor’s company.”
“Yes.”
“And Adrian Mercer?”
“Victor’s business partner at the time.”
Maya remembered the old gala photograph showing Daniel beside both men.
“What did Dad find?”
“Initially, nothing criminal. He found discrepancies.”
“What kind?”
“Properties insured for values that didn’t match their acquisition records. Claims linked to buildings that had changed ownership through shell companies shortly before fires or structural failures. Payments moving between companies that appeared unrelated but were ultimately controlled by the same people.”
“Insurance fraud?”
“That was the beginning.”
Maya heard the last word.
“What was the rest?”
Daniel looked toward the empty garage entrance as though checking they were still alone.
“Your father believed some developments were being deliberately devalued or damaged so they could be acquired cheaply, rebuilt and sold through other companies.”
“Victor was doing that?”
“Victor and Mercer were both implicated in financial records.”
“Implicated isn’t guilty.”
“No.”
“Was my father working with Victor?”
Daniel took a breath. “Eventually.”
Maya stared.
“Victor was the one who contacted him?”
“No. Your father approached police first.”
“Then where does Victor come in?”
“Victor discovered Mercer was moving money without his knowledge. At least that was Victor’s version. He began quietly supplying information through your father.”
Maya tried to fit the image of Victor Hale in her back seat beside the image of Michael Carter eating toast at their kitchen table.
“They knew each other for years?”
“About eighteen months.”
“And Dad never said anything.”
“He was specifically instructed not to.”
“By you?”
“Yes.”
Maya laughed once, without humour. “Wonderful.”
Daniel accepted it.
“Your father became frightened when the investigation expanded beyond fraud.”
“To what?”
Daniel looked directly at her.
“Corruption.”
“The police officers.”
“Yes.”
“Two serving members?”
“At minimum.”
“At minimum?”
“We never established the full number.”
A cold feeling moved through Maya.
“What were police doing for them?”
“Warning them about investigations. Making reports disappear. Providing information on witnesses. In one case, evidence from a financial crimes search was improperly removed before forensic accountants could examine it.”
“And you were investigating your own police?”
“I was part of the team.”
Maya studied him. “That’s why Victor wrote not to trust you.”
Daniel’s expression changed slightly. “Maybe.”
“You don’t believe that?”
“I believe Victor had more than one reason to distrust me.”
“What reasons?”
Daniel looked away.
Maya’s frustration rose. “You keep giving me ninety percent of an answer.”
“The final ten percent is usually the dangerous part.”
“That sounded cleverer in your head.”
“It probably did.”
Maya almost smiled.
She hated that.
“Why did my father stop cooperating?”
Daniel’s face lost the faint softness.
There it was.
The question from the anonymous sender.
“Who told you to ask that?”
“Answer it.”
“Maya.”
“Why did he stop?”
Daniel remained silent long enough for her to know the answer mattered.
Then he said, “Because somebody threatened your family.”
Maya felt the garage disappear around her.
“What?”
“Your father received photographs.”
“Of who?”
“You. Luke. Your mother.”
Her throat tightened.
“When?”
“Nine years ago.”
Maya remembered being twenty-one. University. Part-time café shifts. Fighting with Luke over borrowing her car. Her father becoming strangely controlling for several months, insisting she text whenever she arrived somewhere, calling if she was ten minutes late.
She had thought he was being unbearable.
“What kind of photographs?”
“You walking to university. Luke outside school. Your mother at a supermarket. Nothing violent. That was the point.”
Someone had been watching them.
Maya felt suddenly nauseous.
“Why didn’t he tell us?”
“He thought knowing would frighten you.”
“It should have frightened us.”
“He believed silence would protect you.”
“Did it?”
Daniel did not answer.
Maya looked at him sharply.
“Daniel.”
“He withdrew as a cooperating witness.”
“And?”
“The investigation collapsed.”
“Because of him?”
“No. Because several things happened at once. Your father withdrew. Victor stopped communicating. Evidence disappeared. One officer assigned to the case transferred interstate. Another died before internal investigators interviewed him.”
“How?”
“Car accident.”
Maya stared.
“Do you believe it was an accident?”
“I don’t know.”
“That means no.”
“It means I don’t know.”
Maya folded her arms tightly.
“And one year later my father had a stroke.”
Daniel said nothing.
Every nerve in her body seemed to sharpen.
“No.”
“Maya—”
“No. Don’t do that face.”
“What face?”
“The one you make before giving me something you should have told me hours ago.”
Daniel lowered his eyes.
Maya’s voice became quieter. “Was my father murdered?”
“I have no evidence of that.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
“I don’t know.”
She stared at him.
“Doctors said stroke.”
“Yes.”
“Did you question it?”
Daniel hesitated.
Maya felt anger rise.
“You did.”
“Your father was forty-nine. Relatively healthy. He collapsed alone at work after hours.”
“You investigated his death?”
“Unofficially.”
“And?”
“No signs of assault. No unusual substances in the toxicology panel available at the time. No evidence anyone else entered his office.”
“So it was a stroke.”
“Probably.”
Maya hated the word.
“Probably.”
“Yes.”
“That word has been following me all night.”
Daniel said nothing.
A lift bell sounded in the distance.
Maya turned toward the lobby.
Daniel placed a hand lightly on her arm.
She immediately pulled away.
“What?”
“We need to move.”
“Where?”
“Upstairs.”
“Whose building is this?”
“A former colleague’s apartment.”
“Which colleague?”
“Someone I trust.”
“You have an interesting definition of reassurance.”
Daniel led her toward the lift.
Maya stopped halfway.
“Sophie.”
Daniel turned.
“You said we were finding her.”
“We are.”
“She isn’t here?”
“No.”
“Then why did we stop?”
“Because whoever is messaging you appears to know our movements. I needed to change vehicles and get you off the route they expected.”
Maya stared at him. “You used a police convoy as a decoy.”
“Yes.”
“That’s almost funny considering Victor apparently used me as one.”
Daniel’s expression tightened.
“Difference is, I told the officers what I was doing.”
“Not me.”
“If I told you, the information could have left through your phone.”
Maya looked at the device in her hand.
“You think it’s compromised?”
“I think someone knew I visited your apartment within minutes. Assume everything is compromised until proven otherwise.”
They entered the lift.
Daniel pressed eleven.
Maya looked at the mirrored wall and saw how exhausted she looked. Damp hair. No makeup. Jacket thrown over clothes she had worn for nearly twenty hours.
Daniel’s reflection looked no better.
“Who is Adrian Mercer?” she asked.
“You already searched him.”
“How do you know?”
“Because anyone who received that document would.”
“He was Victor’s partner.”
“Yes.”
“They hated each other.”
“Eventually.”
“Could Mercer have killed Victor?”
“Yes.”
The direct answer surprised her.
“Do you think he did?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because Adrian Mercer is in Singapore.”
“That sounds checkable.”
“We checked.”
“People can arrange murders from Singapore.”
“They can.”
“So why don’t you think he did?”
Daniel looked at the changing floor numbers.
“Because Victor was afraid of someone close enough to watch him personally.”
“The SUV.”
“Possibly.”
“Who owns it?”
“We’re tracing it.”
“That means you know the plate.”
“We know part of it.”
Maya thought about Sophie in the SUV.
“You still haven’t told me who she was with.”
“No.”
“You know.”
“Yes.”
The lift opened.
Maya remained inside.
Daniel stepped out, realised she had not followed and turned.
“Tell me.”
“This is not the place.”
“You say that everywhere.”
He sighed.
“Sophie was with Adrian Mercer’s son.”
That was not the answer Maya expected.
She stepped into the hallway.
“Mercer has a son?”
“Elliot. Thirty-two.”
“Why would Victor’s daughter be following Victor with the son of his father’s enemy?”
“That is currently one of my favourite questions.”
“Were they together?”
“Romantically?”
“Yes.”
“Once.”
“Once as in one date?”
“Once as in a relationship that ended two years ago.”
Maya stared at him.
“And now?”
“I don’t know.”
“You seem to know a lot about Victor’s daughter.”
Daniel’s jaw tightened. “Sophie was a source.”
“For you?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Until three months ago.”
Maya stopped walking.
“So Victor was a source, my father was a witness, Sophie was a source, and somehow you’re standing in the centre of all of them.”
Daniel looked back.
“That’s why Victor didn’t trust me.”
Maya felt a small chill.
“You’re admitting it?”
“I’m telling you how it looks.”
“And how does it actually look?”
“Worse.”
Before she could ask, Daniel unlocked apartment 1108.
The flat was sparse but furnished. Neutral furniture. Closed blinds. No photographs. No personal items.
Temporary.
Maya entered cautiously.
Daniel locked the door behind them.
“Bathroom is down the hall. There are clothes in the bedroom. They won’t fit perfectly.”
“You regularly bring traumatised female witnesses here?”
“No.”
“That sounded suspiciously quick.”
Daniel ignored her.
“Coffee?”
“It’s nearly four.”
“That wasn’t a no.”
“It should have been.”
He went toward the kitchen.
Maya stayed near the entrance.
Her phone vibrated.
Both of them looked at it.
Unknown number.
Daniel said, “Don’t open it.”
Maya opened it.
“Of course,” he muttered.
The message contained an address.
24 LINDEN STREET, FITZROY. COME ALONE IF YOU WANT THE REST OF YOUR FATHER’S FILE.
Maya read it silently.
Daniel held out his hand. “Give me the phone.”
“No.”
“Maya.”
She stepped away.
Another message appeared.
Daniel knows this address. Ask him what happened there.
Maya looked up.
“Do you know 24 Linden Street?”
Daniel went still.
There it was again.
That barely visible reaction.
“Yes.”
“What happened there?”
“Maya, give me the phone.”
She held it tighter.
“What happened?”
Daniel stared at her for several seconds.
“Eight years ago, it was a safe property.”
“Police?”
“Unofficial.”
“For who?”
“Your father.”
Maya stopped breathing.
“What?”
“He stayed there for eleven days after the threats began.”
“He never disappeared for eleven days.”
“He told your family he was interstate for work.”
Maya remembered it.
Sydney.
Her father had brought Luke a cheap airport souvenir and Maya a box of chocolates.
She had teased him for buying both at the terminal.
“What happened at that house?”
Daniel’s face darkened.
“Someone found it.”
A cold weight settled in her stomach.
“And?”
“There was a break-in.”
“Was Dad there?”
“No. I moved him twelve hours earlier.”
“Why?”
“Because Victor warned me the address had been compromised.”
Maya stared at him.
Victor had protected her father.
At least once.
“What did they find?”
“Nothing.”
“Then why does this person want me there?”
Daniel’s answer came immediately.
“Because they want you away from me.”
Maya looked at the message.
“Maybe they want to give me the truth.”
“If they wanted to give you the truth, they could send the file the same way they sent the first page.”
That was annoyingly logical.
“What if something is still there?”
“After eight years?”
“You tell me.”
Daniel approached slowly.
“Listen carefully. Whoever sent that document has access to material very few people knew existed. Whoever sent the messages knew about the tracker, knew I visited you, knew your father’s history and knew about Linden Street. That means we are not dealing with someone who discovered Victor’s secrets tonight.”
“They were involved nine years ago.”
“Yes.”
The room became very quiet.
Maya thought of the two corrupt police officers mentioned in her father’s statement.
“Could the sender be police?”
“Yes.”
“Current police?”
“Yes.”
“And you want me to trust you.”
“No.”
That answer surprised her.
Daniel continued, “I want you to verify everything I tell you. Trust comes later.”
Maya studied him.
For the first time, it sounded like something she could accept.
Then someone knocked on the apartment door.
Three soft knocks.
Daniel froze.
He had told no one the apartment number.
Maya saw the thought reach him.
He drew his firearm.
The change in him was immediate. No hesitation. No tired detective. Daniel moved Maya behind the kitchen wall and approached the door from the side.
Another three knocks.
A woman’s voice came through.
“Daniel?”
Maya recognised it.
Sophie.
Daniel did not lower the gun.
“Sophie?”
“Yes.”
“Step in front of the camera.”
There was a small security screen beside the door.
Sophie moved into view.
Alone.
Wet hair. Pale face. No coat.
Daniel unlocked the door but kept the chain attached.
“How did you find us?”
Sophie looked past him and saw Maya.
Relief crossed her face.
“Victor told me.”
Daniel’s expression hardened.
“Victor is dead.”
“I know.”
“He never knew about this apartment.”
Sophie stared at him.
Then something changed in her face.
Fear.
“You’re wrong.”
“No.”
“He knew.”
“Impossible.”
Sophie stepped closer to the gap in the door.
“He knew because Michael Carter brought him here.”
Maya’s stomach tightened.
Daniel went completely still.
“No,” he said.
Sophie looked at him.
“You really don’t know, do you?”
“Know what?”
Sophie’s eyes moved to Maya.
“Your father wasn’t just a witness.”
Maya stepped forward.
“What was he?”
Daniel said sharply, “Sophie.”
She ignored him.
“Michael was keeping copies of everything. Victor found out after Daniel’s investigation started collapsing. They made an arrangement without police.”
“What arrangement?”
Sophie swallowed.
“My father would supply the evidence. Michael would hide it somewhere nobody connected to Victor could find.”
Maya stared.
“Where?”
Sophie looked almost apologetic.
“That’s why Victor chose your car.”
Maya’s pulse quickened.
“What do you mean?”
“Before Michael died, he told Victor that if anything ever happened to him, there was only one person who could retrieve the complete archive.”
“Who?”
Sophie held her gaze.
“You.”
Maya almost laughed.
“That’s impossible. I didn’t know any of this.”
“You weren’t supposed to.”
“Then how am I supposed to retrieve something I don’t know exists?”
“Your father left instructions.”
“Where?”
Sophie looked toward Daniel.
“Victor had them.”
Maya remembered the USB.
The photograph.
The cash.
All stolen from her apartment.
“So they’re gone.”
Sophie shook her head.
“No.”
Maya frowned.
“Victor never put the instructions on the USB.”
“Then where are they?”
Sophie stepped closer.
“In your car.”
Maya stared at her.
“We searched my car.”
“You found what Victor wanted people to find.”
“The envelope?”
“A decoy.”
“The tracker?”
“Another decoy.”
Daniel lowered his weapon slightly.
“What exactly did Victor hide?”
Sophie looked at him.
“I don’t know.”
“That is not believable.”
“My father never told me. He said only Maya would recognise it.”
Maya felt anger rise.
“I didn’t recognise anything.”
“Then you haven’t found it.”
Maya remembered every object inside the Camry. Water bottles. Charging cables. Cleaning supplies. Receipts. Mints. Dashcam. Umbrella. Tissue box.
Nothing unusual.
Then she remembered something Victor had done almost at the beginning of the ride.
Something so ordinary she had forgotten it.
He had asked for a charging cable.
No.
He had picked one up from the floor.
Maya’s breath caught.
“The charging cable.”
Daniel looked at her. “What?”
“Victor reached down behind the passenger seat during the ride. I thought he picked up one of my cables.”
Sophie’s expression changed.
“Was it yours?”
“I assumed it was.”
“How many cables do you keep in the car?”
“Three.”
“How many were there when you finished?”
Maya had never counted.
Daniel was already reaching for his phone.
He stopped.
“No police radio.”
“Why?”
Sophie looked toward the door.
“Because if someone inside Victoria Police has been reading Daniel’s investigation for nine years, you don’t tell them where we’re going next.”
Daniel stared at her.
Maya understood.
“My car.”
Sophie nodded.
“If Victor hid the real instructions anywhere, they may still be inside it.”
Daniel grabbed his coat.
“We move now.”
Maya didn’t.
Something else had caught her attention.
“How did you know Michael Carter?”
Sophie looked back.
“I didn’t.”
“You called him Michael.”
“So?”
“Everyone who sent me documents tonight calls him Michael. Daniel calls him my father. You called him Michael like you knew him.”
Sophie’s expression tightened.
Maya stepped closer.
“You were seventeen when he died.”
“Yes.”
“Did you meet him?”
Sophie did not answer.
Daniel watched her carefully.
“Sophie.”
She closed her eyes briefly.
Then said, “Once.”
Maya’s skin prickled.
“When?”
“The night before he died.”
Daniel’s face changed.
“You told me you never met Carter.”
“I lied.”
“Why?”
Sophie looked at Maya.
“Because Michael made me promise.”
Maya’s voice dropped.
“Promise what?”
Sophie reached into the pocket of her wet jeans.
Daniel immediately raised the gun again.
“Slowly.”
Sophie removed an old silver key.
She held it between two fingers.
Maya recognised it.
She had seen that key every day of her childhood.
It used to hang from her father’s keyring beside a small red football charm.
After his death, nobody had known what it opened.
Then one day it disappeared.
Maya stared at it.
“Where did you get that?”
Sophie’s eyes filled with something that looked dangerously close to guilt.
“Your father gave it to me.”
“Why?”
“He said I would know when to return it.”
Maya stepped forward.
“And tonight is the night?”
“No.”
Sophie looked down at the key.
“Tonight is eight years too late.”
Daniel asked, “What does it open?”
Sophie looked toward Maya.
“That is the problem.”
Maya waited.
Sophie placed the key into her palm.
“Michael never told me.”
Maya closed her fingers around the cold metal.
Her phone vibrated.
Unknown number.
She opened the message.
A photograph loaded.
Her Camry.
Still parked beneath her apartment building.
The image had been taken moments ago.
Someone stood beside the driver’s door.
The face was hidden beneath a hood.
A second photograph arrived.
This one showed the person holding one of Maya’s charging cables.
Then came the message.
You were too slow.
Daniel grabbed his keys.
Maya stared at the final photograph as another message appeared.
Now we have what Michael Carter hid.