Chapter 8: The Father's Secret

Kael was waiting for me at the warehouse entrance, his usual predatory grace replaced by barely contained agitation. His dark clothes were disheveled, his sharp features drawn tight with urgency, and there was something wild in his eyes that made my already unstable form flicker with sympathetic anxiety.

"Thank God," he breathed when he saw me approaching. "We need to move fast. I found something."

"What kind of something?" I followed him through the familiar maze of abandoned machinery, noting how his hands shook as he led me deeper into the building.

"The kind that changes everything." He stopped at Liam's old sanctuary and spun to face me, his expression a mixture of triumph and horror. "I've been digging into your father's finances for weeks, following paper trails and bank records. What I found..." He pulled out a manila folder thick with documents. "Robert Henderson isn't just in debt. He's in debt to the kind of people who collect with baseball bats and shallow graves."

My blood chilled as he spread the papers across one of the old couches. Bank statements, loan documents, threatening letters—all bearing Robert Henderson's name and increasingly desperate signatures.

"How much?" I asked, though I dreaded the answer.

"Two hundred and fifty thousand. Plus interest that's been compounding for months." Kael's finger traced a series of transactions that showed money flowing out faster than it came in. "He started gambling about a year ago. Small bets at first, then bigger ones when he started losing. Classic addiction pattern."

I studied the documents, recognizing the signs of a man drowning in his own poor decisions. Loan shark agreements with interest rates that bordered on criminal. Refinancing papers for the family home. Even a second mortgage that Mrs. Henderson's signature suggested she knew nothing about.

"The timeline matches," I said, pieces clicking into place. "Liam discovered this somehow."

"More than discovered it. He tried to help." Kael pulled out another set of papers—printouts of emails between Liam and various financial institutions. "He was researching debt consolidation, looking into legal assistance programs, even considered taking out his own loans to help cover the debt."

The emails painted a picture of a young man torn between protecting his family and enabling his father's destructive behavior. Liam had been scared, confused, desperate to find a solution that wouldn't destroy the people he loved.

"But that's not the worst part," Kael continued, his voice dropping to a whisper. "Look at this."

He handed me a photograph—grainy, taken from a distance, but clear enough to show Robert Henderson shaking hands with a man whose scarred face and expensive suit screamed organized crime. The timestamp showed it was taken just two days before Liam's death.

"Vincent Torrino," Kael said, seeing my confusion. "Runs most of the illegal gambling operations on the east side. Also happens to be the man your father owes a quarter million dollars to."

I stared at the photograph, trying to reconcile the image of the tired, loving man who'd carved salmon at family dinners with this desperate figure making deals with criminals.

"So when Liam confronted him about the debt..."

"Your father panicked. Maybe Liam threatened to expose everything, to tell your mother what was happening. Or maybe he just couldn't handle the shame of his son knowing what a failure he'd become." Kael's eyes glittered with satisfaction. "Either way, Robert Henderson had motive, means, and opportunity."

It made perfect sense. Too perfect, almost. A gambling addiction spiraling out of control, a son discovering the truth at exactly the wrong moment, a desperate father choosing murder over exposure. The pieces fit together with the neat precision of a jigsaw puzzle.

But something nagged at me. The memory I'd experienced when touching Liam's jacket—that final moment of terror and betrayal—hadn't felt like confronting a gambling-addicted father. It had felt like something else entirely.

"We need proof," I said. "Something more than circumstantial evidence."

"We need a confession," Kael corrected. "And you're going to get it."

The plan he outlined was elegantly simple. I would confront Robert Henderson that evening, armed with the financial documents and photographs Kael had uncovered. The shock of discovery would hopefully crack his composure enough to reveal the truth about what had happened to Liam.

"And if he doesn't confess?"

Kael's smile was sharp as broken glass. "Then we present our evidence to Vincent Torrino. I'm sure he'd be very interested to learn that his debtor murdered the only person who might have been able to help him pay back the money."

The threat was clear—confess to us, or face the wrath of people far more dangerous than grief-stricken lovers and vengeful spirits. It was blackmail at its most elegant, and despite my growing unease about our methods, I couldn't deny its effectiveness.

I spent the afternoon preparing, reviewing every document, memorizing every detail of Robert Henderson's financial downfall. The irony wasn't lost on me—I was about to confront a man about living a lie while wearing his dead son's face and feeding off his wife's maternal love.

By evening, my borrowed form had stabilized enough to pass casual inspection, sustained by the emotional energy I'd drawn from Mrs. Henderson's lunch invitation. But underneath the facade, my true nature writhed with anticipation. Tonight would bring answers, and with them, perhaps an understanding of why I existed and what I was meant to do.

The Henderson house looked the same as always—warm light spilling from windows, the perfect suburban sanctuary that hid so many secrets. But as I approached the front door, I could see Robert Henderson through the living room window, slumped in his chair with a glass of whiskey and the hollow expression of a man who'd run out of options.

He looked up when I entered, and for a moment, I saw something flicker across his features—fear, guilt, recognition? It was gone too quickly to analyze, replaced by the tired smile of a father greeting his son.

"Liam. I wasn't expecting you tonight."

"We need to talk." I settled into the chair across from him, the manila folder heavy in my hands. "About your gambling problem."

The color drained from his face so completely that for a moment I thought he might faint. His whiskey glass trembled in his grip, amber liquid sloshing against the sides.

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Vincent Torrino. Two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. The second mortgage you took out without telling Mom." I opened the folder and spread the documents across the coffee table between us. "Should I continue?"

Robert Henderson aged ten years in that instant. His shoulders sagged as if the weight of his secrets had suddenly become too heavy to bear, and when he looked at me, his eyes held the desperate pleading of a drowning man.

"How did you... where did you get these?"

"Does it matter?" I kept my voice level, controlled, despite the anticipation clawing at my chest. "The question is what you're going to do about it."

"Liam, you have to understand—"

"I understand that you've put our entire family at risk. The house, Mom's security, everything we've built. For what? The thrill of placing bets you couldn't afford?"

Tears began streaming down his cheeks, and the raw emotion in his expression sent an unexpected pulse of energy through me. Fear, shame, desperate love—all the complex emotions of a father facing his failures in front of the son he'd tried so hard to protect.

"I never meant for it to go this far," he whispered. "It started so small, just a few games with friends. Then I started winning, and I thought... I thought I could make enough to pay for your college, for Chloe's wedding, for your mother's retirement." His voice cracked. "But the losses kept coming, and the debt kept growing, and I couldn't stop."

"So you took out loans. From criminals."

"I had no choice! The bank wouldn't extend our credit, and Torrino's people said it would be easy money, quick turnaround." He looked at me with eyes full of anguish. "I was trying to fix things, Liam. I was trying to be the provider you all deserved."

The confession poured out of him like poison from a wound—months of secret gambling, mounting debts, increasingly dangerous people making increasingly specific threats. He'd been living in terror for weeks, jumping at shadows, afraid to leave the house except for the most necessary errands.

"They came to my office last week," he said, his voice barely above a whisper. "Torrino's men. Said if I didn't have their money by the end of the month, they'd start collecting from my family instead."

Ice formed in my veins. "What kind of collecting?"

"They showed me pictures. Of your mother leaving the grocery store. Of Chloe walking to class. Of you..." He stopped, his expression shifting to something like confusion. "Of you coming and going from your apartment, though something seemed wrong about the photos. Like they'd been taken from very far away, or through some kind of filter."

My mind raced. Someone had been photographing me—but if Torrino's people had been watching the family, why would the images look strange? Unless they'd noticed the same instability in my form that was becoming increasingly difficult to hide.

"Where are these photographs now?"

"I burned them. Couldn't stand looking at them, knowing what they represented." He buried his face in his hands. "I've destroyed everything, Liam. Our family, our future, everything your mother and I worked to build."

The raw grief in his voice should have moved me, should have triggered sympathy for this broken man drowning in his own mistakes. Instead, I felt only a growing sense of wrongness. The pieces fit together too neatly, the confession too complete, too willing.

"Dad," I said carefully, "the night I died—"

"The night you what?" His head snapped up, confusion replacing despair in his expression.

The words had slipped out without conscious thought, and now Robert Henderson was staring at me with the kind of bewilderment that suggested he had no idea what I was talking about.

"I meant the night I discovered your debt. When I confronted you about it."

"But you never confronted me about anything. You've been acting strange lately, distant, but I thought it was just work stress." His confusion deepened. "Liam, what's going on? You're talking like... like something terrible happened, but you're right here."

The foundation of our entire investigation crumbled beneath me. Robert Henderson wasn't hiding a murder—he was hiding a gambling addiction. He hadn't killed his son to protect his secrets because, as far as he knew, his son was still alive and sitting across from him in their living room.

"You didn't hurt me," I said, the words feeling strange in my mouth. "You never laid a hand on me."

"Of course not! Jesus, Liam, what kind of father do you think I am?" He stood abruptly, pacing to the window with agitated energy. "I've made mistakes—terrible, costly mistakes—but I would never hurt you. Never hurt any of you. You're the most important thing in my life."

The sincerity in his voice was undeniable. Whatever Robert Henderson was guilty of, murder wasn't on the list. Which meant our investigation had been built on a foundation of false assumptions and misdirected suspicion.

"If you need money," he continued, turning back to face me with desperate hope, "if there's any way you could help with the debt, I swear I'll pay back every penny. I'll get help, go to meetings, whatever it takes. Just... please don't tell your mother. Not yet. Let me find a way to fix this first."

I stared at this broken man, this gambling addict who loved his family so much he'd risk everything to provide for them, and realized with crystal clarity that he wasn't our killer.

Which meant we'd been hunting the wrong prey.

And somewhere in this perfect suburban house, the real murderer was still walking free.