Family Money(32)

“Zoe loves a good belly rub,” she said, smiling. She handed me the tea, and I took a quick sip. It was awful, but I made a yum sound and set it on the glass coffee table.

Lorena jumped right in. “I still think about Bruce and Daniel quite often. Such wonderful guys. It was so tragic for me and everyone when they passed.”

“How long did you work for them?”

“I was with Bruce for four years when Daniel joined him after graduating from law school. Daniel was so smart and so enjoyable to be around. He just had this magnetic way about him that always made everyone feel better. It was hard to accept that such a promising life had been cut so short.”

I wanted to tell her he had actually gone on to live out a life of real impact. “Were there other staff besides you?”

She nodded. “Two law students who clerked when not in class.” She wrinkled her forehead. “What were their names again? Linda and . . . Roger? Oh, I just can’t place their last names right now. Getting older has really messed with my memory. They were with us for only a brief time before the accident. Of course, the firm closed right after.”

“What can you tell me about the day of the accident?”

She pressed her lips together. “Such a sad day. They flew out really early to El Paso. They had a morning meeting with a client. I was in the office all day, catching up on paperwork. I think Linda was there with me, researching a case for Bruce. I got a call midafternoon from someone who worked at the small airport outside of El Paso. I think he said Bruce had written down our office phone number in a log somewhere. The man told me that their plane had exploded almost immediately after taking off. Two men were inside, and neither one had survived.” She put her hand to her chest. “I still feel nearly the same devastation today that I felt in that moment so many years ago.”

“It was Bruce’s plane?” I asked.

“Yes, he liked to fly. He was flying well before I started working for him. The little plane allowed them to take on clients from around the state. So he and Daniel would fly off to various places a couple of times a month.”

“Did they ever say what caused the crash?”

She twisted her mouth up. “I’m not really sure. I think something with the engine catching on fire. After it happened, I was busy trying to do whatever I could to close the firm while helping transition all our clients. I knew Bruce and Daniel would want me to do that. It probably took me a month before I was able to close the doors for good. Such a strange thing to shut down an entire law firm all by myself. But I did my best.”

“I assume you went to their funeral services?”

“Of course. They had a joint service. It was so sad. Daniel had just gotten married. A beautiful young lady named Greta. She was clearly devastated.”

“Did you keep in touch with Greta?”

“No, she moved away not long after.”

“Were there other family members there?”

“That’s part of what made it sad. I guess Bruce didn’t have much family. His wife had died when Daniel was little, and he never remarried. I think there might’ve been a long-lost uncle or something. But that was all. It was mostly friends and business associates—which they had plenty of both.”

I tried to figure out how to transition from the facts of the plane crash to the revelation that Daniel Gibson seemed to have actually somehow survived. “Did anyone else travel with them to El Paso?”

“No, the plane was only a two-seater. Bruce offered to take me up once, but I declined. I was so scared of flying back then. After the crash, it took me a long time to get back on any airplane. But then my kids got married and moved away. And soon there were grandkids. Nothing like a grandbaby to help you get over your fears. Now I fly all over the place.”

If my father-in-law had not been on that two-seater plane with his father upon takeoff, then who had? It felt surreal to even be pondering such possibilities. My pursuit of answers about Joe’s money had led me down a twisting rabbit hole I could have never anticipated. I had no idea how I was going to find my way out of it now without continuing to press forward in search of the truth.

“Did you discover anything unusual while you were spending that month trying to close down the firm?” I asked her.

Her brow bunched. “Unusual?”

“About their cases or anything in their files?”

“Not that I recall. Honestly, I didn’t spend too much time going through their cases. I was just trying to box everything up appropriately.”

“What did you do with the boxes?”

“I stored them in my garage for a while. Wasn’t sure if I needed to hold on to them or not. I asked another lawyer friend, and he told me to do that, just in case. After a few years, I had them all shredded. Well, except for two of them.”

“What happened to those two?”

“They got stolen from the office. Can you believe that? A few days after the accident, I came into the office late one night because I’d forgotten something at my desk. When I got there, I noticed a light was on in our back conference room. We only had a small office suite with a couple of rooms for Bruce and Daniel and a conference room in the back. I always made it a habit to turn off the lights, so I was surprised to see the glow from the back. When I walked back there to take a look, some guy was climbing out the window to the parking lot. Scared me to death, so I quickly called the police. After reviewing everything, I realized two boxes I’d packed were missing.”