Chapter 4

Back to the mountain road where my father's accident happened.

It was a remote stretch of highway. Barely any traffic at the best of times.

The official conclusion had been that the road was slick from rain and my father lost control of the car.

Looking at it now, that conclusion had more holes in it than I could count.

My father had been driving for decades. No matter how bad the road conditions, he wouldn't make a mistake like that.

I parked on the road and looked down through the gap in the guardrail.

A cliff dropped away below — dozens of meters down, thick with trees.

That was where his car had gone over.

He was found with severe head trauma, unconscious, and rushed to the hospital.

I started picking my way down the slope.

I wanted to see the scene of the accident up close. Maybe something had been missed.

The ground was slippery. I fell several times, getting mud on my pants and hands.

After about fifteen minutes, I reached the base of the cliff.

His car — a black Bentley — had long since been towed away. All that remained was some broken debris and a long scar scraped into the earth.

I searched the area carefully, not leaving a single corner unchecked.

But aside from the wreckage and some crushed brush, I found nothing.

The light was fading. Wind came down from the mountain, cold against my skin.

I was about to give up when I noticed a small village not far off.

A few lights glowed in the windows, still and quiet.

A thought flashed through my mind.

The accident happened in such an isolated spot. If anyone had witnessed something that night, it would have been someone from that village.

I decided to try. I walked toward the lights.

Near the entrance to the village, an elderly man sat on a stone step, smoking a pipe.

I approached and greeted him politely. "Excuse me, sir. I was hoping you could help me with something."

He looked up, studying me with clouded eyes.

"What is it?"

"A while back — on the night it rained heavily — there was a car accident up on the mountain road. Do you remember that?"

The elderly man took a long drag from his pipe and nodded slowly.

"That black car that came off the mountain. Terrible fall. Didn't know if whoever was inside lived or died."

My breath caught.

"Were you... there at the time? Did you see anything?"

The elderly man squinted, as if pulling something up from his memory.

"Rain was too heavy for me to go out. But I heard something."

"What did you hear?"

"Arguing." He paused. "Two men. Going at it hard. One of them kept shouting something like 'you can't do this.'"

Two men.

The air went out of my lungs.

"Could you see what they looked like?"

The old man shook his head.

"Too dark. pouring rain. Couldn't make them out." He paused. "Though there was something strange."

"What was strange?"

"The two of them..." He tilted his head. "Their voices sounded exactly the same."