He remembered telling the man that he did not want to hear accusations against his business partner.
He also remembered Nicole entering his office immediately afterward.
She handed him coffee.
Sat beside him.
And told him Daniel Carter had been taking advantage of Laura's anxiety.
Richard had believed her.
Now he looked at the firm's telephone number.
His hands began trembling.
He pressed the call button.
It rang four times.
Then voicemail answered.
A calm male voice identified the firm.
Richard waited for the beep.
For several seconds, he could not speak.
Then he said, "Mr. Carter, my name is Richard Bennett."
He swallowed.
"You knew my wife, Laura."
A pause.
"I think I owe you an apology."
He looked toward the letter.
"And I need to ask you about the night she died."
He left his number.
Then ended the call.
For a long time, he sat staring at the phone.
Finally, he opened the drawer where Laura once kept her stationery.
A small packet of unused cream-colored paper remained.
Beside it lay a blue pen.
Richard remembered buying that pen for her birthday.
She had laughed because he accidentally ordered three instead of one.
Then insisted she would never run out of blue ink.
He lifted it.
Turned it slowly in his fingers.
And thought about how many things he had ignored because he believed there would always be another opportunity to listen.
A few minutes later, his phone rang.
The screen displayed an unfamiliar number.
Richard answered immediately.
"Hello?"
A man's voice spoke.
"Richard Bennett?"
"Yes."
"This is Daniel Carter."
Richard closed his eyes.
For several seconds, he could not answer.
“Thank you for calling me back,” Richard Bennett whispered.
For several seconds, the man on the other end of the telephone said nothing.
Then Daniel Carter answered in a voice Richard had not heard in six years.
“I wondered whether you ever would.”
Richard closed his eyes.
He was sitting alone at the dining room table, surrounded by the terrible remains of an afternoon that had destroyed everything he believed about his family.
A white ceramic mug stood beside a blue notebook. A pink marker lay near the edge of the table. The pregnancy test Nicole had used to humiliate his eighteen-year-old daughter had been placed inside a sealed plastic bag after the police documented the incident.
And directly in front of him lay a letter written by his first wife the day before she died.
Laura Bennett.
His Laura.
The woman whose laughter once filled every room of this house.
The woman he had spent six years believing died in a tragic accident.
The woman who had apparently been trying to warn him that two people he trusted were stealing from the company they built together.