Chapter 15 #2
If you’ve made it this far, you’re close to the end. Everything you need to take down Wheeler is on this drive. Video testimony from witnesses. Recorded confessions. Evidence of bribes, murders, corruption going back twenty years.
But there’s one more thing. Something I needed you to hear directly from me.
The video labeled “For Quinn” is for you alone. Watch it when you’re ready. When you’re strong enough.
I’m proud of you, baby girl. I’m so proud.
Finish this.
—Dad
Quinn’s hands shook as she pulled out the USB drive. It was labeled in her father’s handwriting: WHEELER EVIDENCE - MASTER FILE.
“Do you have your laptop?” she asked Dax.
He pulled it from his bag, booted it up, and handed it to her.
Quinn plugged in the drive with trembling fingers. The directory opened, showing dozens of video files, each one labeled with a date and a name.
Thomas Crane - 2013 Clara Mendez - 2014 Leesa Fine - 2015
Quinn’s breath caught. “Leesa Fine. That’s—”
“My fiancée.” Dax’s voice was strangled. “Your father interviewed her?”
Quinn ignored the pang of irrational jealousy and clicked on the file. Leesa’s face filled the screen—young, beautiful, alive. The date stamp said three weeks before she died.
“My name is Leesa Fine,” she said on the video, her voice clear and strong. “I’m a social worker for Blackridge County, and I’m here to testify about the Riverside Group Home and its connection to Wheeler Properties LLC...”
Dax made a choked sound. Quinn paused the video and looked at him.
“I didn’t know,” she whispered. “I didn’t know he’d interviewed her.”
“She never told me.” Dax’s tortured eyes were locked on Leesa’s frozen face on the screen. “She said she was working with a journalist, but she never said who. I didn’t know it was your father.”
“They were working together. Fighting Wheeler together.” Quinn’s throat tightened. “And Wheeler killed them both.”
Dax’s jaw clenched, and when he spoke, his voice was rough with emotion. “Play it. I need to hear what she said.”
Quinn hit play.
Leesa talked for twenty minutes about the group home, about the abuse and neglect she’d discovered, about the paper trail that led back to Wheeler’s properties. About how Wheeler was profiting off the suffering of vulnerable children.
When the video ended, Dax was silent, tears streaming down his face.
Quinn found his hand and held it tight.
“There are others,” she said softly, scrolling through the files. “Dozens of them. Witnesses who trusted my father to protect their stories.”
Dax’s voice was deep, gruff when he spoke. “We need to watch all of them. Document everything.”
“Not now.” Quinn’s eyes found the file at the bottom of the list. For Quinn - PLAY LAST.
Her father’s video. His final message to her.
“I need to watch this one first,” she said softly, already reaching for the mouse.
Dax nodded. “Do you want privacy?”
She paused to look at him, eyes wide. “No. Stay. Please.” She didn’t think she could do this part alone.
He studied her for a moment before nodding. She turned back to the laptop and clicked on the file.
Her father’s face filled the screen.
Quinn’s breath stopped.
David looked tired but determined, his dark hair mussed, sitting in what looked like a hotel room. The date stamp said three days before he died.
“Hi, Quinn.” His voice was exactly as she remembered—warm, strong, full of love. Almost as if he were right there in the room with them. “If you’re watching this, then I’m gone. And I’m sorry. I’m so sorry I’m not there to help you through this. To walk you through what comes next.”
Tears poured down Quinn’s face, but she couldn’t look away.
“I want you to know that everything I did, I did to make the world safer for you. To make Blackridge a place where people like Wheeler can’t hurt the innocent. Can’t profit off suffering. Can’t kill good people and get away with it.”
He leaned forward, his eyes, the same shade of amber as Quinn’s, intense even through the screen.
“I know I’m asking a lot of you. Asking you to finish something I started. Asking you to put yourself in danger. And if you’re watching this, you’ve already done so much. You’ve found the evidence. You’ve talked to the witnesses. You’ve pieced together the truth.”
Quinn sobbed. Dax’s strong arm came around her shoulders, but she barely felt it.
“I’m so proud of you, Quinn. Prouder than I can ever express. You’re brave and brilliant and stubborn. Just like your grandmother. Just like me.” He smiled, that crooked smile she remembered so well. “We’re a family of fighters. And you’re the best of us.”
“Dad,” Quinn whispered to the screen. She wished in that moment that she could hug him one last time. She missed him beyond words, and seeing him now, hearing his voice as if he were still alive and just a phone call away, was its own kind of torture.
“Use this evidence. Take it to the DA. Make them listen. Make them act. Wheeler has gotten away with this for too long. He’s hurt too many people. Killed too many people. It has to end.”
His expression grew serious, grave.
“But Quinn—and this is important—don’t sacrifice yourself for this.
Don’t let the quest for justice consume you the way it consumed me.
I chose this fight knowing the risks. You didn’t choose it.
It was thrust on you. And if it ever gets to be too much, if you ever need to walk away...
do it. Live your life. Be happy. Don’t let Wheeler take that from you too. ”
Quinn shook her head. “I can’t walk away. Not now.”
“I love you, baby girl. More than anything in this world. And wherever I am now, I’ll be watching over you. Protecting you. Proud of you.”
He reached toward the camera, as if he could touch her through the screen.
“Be brave, Quinn. Be smart. Be safe. And know that you’re loved. Always loved.”
The screen went black.
Quinn stared at it, her whole body shaking with sobs.
Then she turned and buried her face in Dax’s chest and let herself fall apart.
He held her while she cried for her father, for Leesa, for everyone Wheeler had destroyed. Held her while she grieved for the childhood she’d lost when her father died, for the years she’d spent not knowing the truth, for the grandmother who was slipping away even now.
“I can’t do this,” she gasped between sobs. “It’s too much. It’s all too much.”