Word for word, he repeated that the young couple had left town by choice and that his stubborn daughter had made up her own mind. His tone never changed. Neither did his expression.
The lie sounded practiced, the kind a person repeats so often he starts to believe it himself. The detective chose not to press him during that first informal visit. He stood up, thanked Victor for the tea, and walked out.
At the gate, Mercer turned and glanced back at the house. Victor was standing motionless behind the curtain, watching him leave. There was no fear in his face. Only cold curiosity.
Meanwhile, forensic technicians continued working on the recovered vehicle. The car was taken apart piece by piece, and though the plates had long since deteriorated, the vehicle identification number confirmed it was the same car Andrew had borrowed from his friend.
That friend had spent fifteen years believing Andrew had stolen the car and disappeared. He had carried that resentment all that time, never realizing he was angry at a dead man. The remains were sent to the regional lab for a full forensic examination.
The medical findings changed the case immediately. On Andrew’s remains, examiners found clear evidence of a severe blow from a heavy blunt object delivered from above. The injury pattern suggested he had been seated when he was struck.
Most likely, he had been sitting in the driver’s seat when someone attacked him through the open window. There had been a single powerful strike, and it was fatal. It was now obvious that the car had not gone off the bridge by accident. This was murder.
As for Natalie, there was no sign of head trauma. But examiners found damage to the structures of her throat consistent with forceful manual strangulation. In forensic terms, the conclusion was straightforward: she had been choked to death.
The killer had stood face-to-face with a young woman in her wedding dress and taken her life. She died on the day she should have been happiest.
Now Detective Mercer had proof that this was a double homicide. The problem was time. Fifteen years had passed. Witnesses forget. Physical evidence decays. The town itself had changed.
So he started where he could: with the people who had last seen the couple alive. He found the bride’s friend who had been riding in the car behind them. She had grown older and moved away, but she remembered that day with unsettling clarity.
In her interview, she confirmed that Natalie had willingly gotten out of the car in the middle of the bridge. She had walked toward a tall man standing ahead. The witness admitted she never saw his face, and then the wedding car moved off….
