Chapter 3 - THE RECORDS WYATT NEVER EXPECTED ME TO FIND
Daniel arrived at my house less than forty minutes later.
He looked older than I remembered. Nolan’s death had changed all of us, but Daniel wore grief differently. Where Nolan had been warm and easygoing, Daniel had become quiet and watchful. He hugged Harper when he came inside, then asked Paige to take her upstairs.
Once the kitchen door closed, he turned to me.
“What did Harper tell you?”
I told him everything.
The argument. The hotel. The red book. The warning Wyatt gave Harper after Nolan died.
Daniel listened without interrupting. When I finished, he leaned both hands against the counter and stared at the floor.
“I knew something was wrong,” he said.
My voice rose. “You knew?”
“I suspected.”
“You suspected Wyatt had something to do with Nolan’s death, and you never told me?”
Daniel looked at me with pain in his eyes.
“I didn’t know what to tell you, Claire. The police ruled it an accident. The company’s lawyers shut everything down fast. I had no proof.”
“But Nolan told you something?”
He nodded slowly.
“Three days before he died, Nolan called me.”
My hands began to shake.
“He said there were problems at the Hamilton site. Serious ones. He said the renovation company had been cutting corners with the structural work.”
“Wyatt worked for that company,” I said.
“Yes. Wyatt had moved into project management a few months before the accident.”
I remembered. At the time, I had been proud of him. He had been promoted after years of working alongside Nolan.
Daniel continued.
“Nolan said the old support beams weren’t being reinforced properly. The engineering reports had been changed. He found invoices for materials that were never delivered.”
“Who changed the reports?”
“Nolan didn’t say. He only said he had copied everything.”
The words Harper remembered came rushing back.
Daddy said he had copies.
“Did he tell you where the copies were?” I asked.
Daniel shook his head.
“He said if anything happened to him, I should look in a place Wyatt would never think to search.”
I stared at him.
“Why would Wyatt matter?”
Daniel closed his eyes.
“Because Nolan believed Wyatt was involved.”
The kitchen seemed to tilt.
I gripped the edge of the table.
“No,” I whispered.
“I didn’t want to believe it either,” Daniel said. “Wyatt was his best friend. They grew up together. They were practically brothers.”
“Then why would he do it?”
“Money. Pressure. Maybe fear. I don’t know.”
For the next hour, Daniel and I searched every place Nolan might have hidden something.
The attic.
The garage.
His old tool chest.
The cedar hope chest at the foot of our bed.
I felt like an intruder in my own home, opening drawers and boxes that had been untouched since his death.
Then Daniel remembered something.
“The fishing shed,” he said.
Nolan’s father had left him a small wooden shed behind the property. It had once been used to store rods, tackle boxes, and an old aluminum boat. After Nolan died, I could barely stand to go near it.
We walked through the wet grass behind the house. The rain had stopped, but the air smelled like earth and pine.
Daniel unlocked the rusted padlock.
Inside, dust drifted through narrow beams of sunlight. Everything was exactly as Nolan had left it: a faded life jacket, a stack of old magazines, a tackle box with a broken latch.
Daniel moved toward the workbench.
“Nolan used to hide things in strange places,” he said.
“Like where?”
He smiled sadly.
“Anywhere he thought was clever.”
He knocked on the wooden panel beneath the bench.
The sound changed.
Hollow.
We pulled out a screwdriver and removed four rusted screws. Behind the panel was a narrow space.
Inside sat a waterproof plastic container.
My hands shook so badly that Daniel had to open it.
There were documents inside.
Photographs.
A flash drive.
And a small red notebook.
Harper had remembered correctly.
I picked it up with trembling fingers.
The first pages contained handwritten dates and notes in Nolan’s familiar block lettering.
April 14 — Site manager approved substitute steel supports. Not rated for ballroom ceiling load.
April 19 — Wyatt says not to make trouble. Claims owner is “handling it.”
April 23 — Saw payment transfer from Hamilton Restoration LLC to private account. Name initials W.C.
April 25 — If I report this, someone is going down.
Then, on the final page, Nolan had written one sentence.
If something happens to me, it was not an accident.
I stopped breathing.
Daniel reached for the flash drive.
“We need to see what’s on this.”
I looked toward the house.
Toward the wedding dress waiting upstairs.
Toward the man who had been preparing to marry me while hiding what he knew about my husband’s death.
“What do we do now?” I asked.
Daniel looked at me.
“We go to the police.”
But before we could leave, my phone rang.
Wyatt.
I watched his name glow on the screen.
For a moment, I considered ignoring it.
Then I answered.
“Claire,” he said. His voice was calm, but too calm. “Where are you?”
“I’m home.”
“I stopped by the venue. Everyone’s worried.”
“I needed time.”
“You’ve had nearly two hours.”
I looked down at Nolan’s notebook.
“Wyatt,” I said quietly, “did Nolan ever tell you he kept copies of the site records?”
There was silence.
Not confusion.
Not surprise.
Silence.
Then Wyatt exhaled slowly.
“Claire, I don’t know what Daniel has been saying to you, but he’s been obsessed with blaming someone for Nolan’s death.”
“I found a notebook.”
Another pause.
“Where?”
The question came too fast.
My skin went cold.
“You knew about it,” I said.
“Claire—”
“You knew Nolan had evidence.”
“You don’t understand what you found.”
“I understand enough.”
His voice changed.
The warmth disappeared.
“Listen to me carefully. You need to put those papers back where you found them.”
I looked at Daniel.
He had heard every word.
“Why?” I asked.
“Because people who don’t understand this situation could get hurt.”
My heart pounded.
“Is that a threat?”
“No,” he said. “It’s a warning.”
I stared through the small window of the fishing shed.
At the edge of the yard, parked beneath the oak trees, was Wyatt’s black SUV.
He had found us.
Daniel saw it too.
“Don’t say anything else,” he whispered.
But Wyatt was still speaking through the phone.
“I did everything for you,” he said. “For you and Harper. I gave you a life after Nolan.”
“You took his life,” I said.
His voice went quiet.
“You have no idea what you’re accusing me of.”
Then the line went dead.
Daniel grabbed the container.
“We need to leave. Now.”
We hurried toward his truck, but Wyatt stepped out of the SUV before we reached it.
He was still dressed for our wedding.
Still holding the bouquet of white roses.
Only now, his face looked unfamiliar.
Not like the man I had trusted.
Like someone who had been waiting years for a secret to stay buried.
“You shouldn’t have called Daniel,” Wyatt said.
I held Nolan’s red notebook against my chest.
“You shouldn’t have killed my husband.”
Wyatt’s jaw tightened.
“I didn’t kill Nolan.”
“Then tell me what happened.”
For a moment, he looked at me with something close to regret.
Then he said, “I tried to save him.”
May you like
And somehow, those five words frightened me more than a denial ever could.
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