When Vince’s wife saw the photo on my phone, she didn’t start crying or yelling like I expected.
She just sat down slowly at the kitchen table and asked me to zoom in on his left arm.
I did.
There was the tattoo. Same faded bulldog mascot from high school. Same scar across his wrist from when we flipped a dirt bike at sixteen. No question it was him.
She kept staring at the picture for a long time then finally said, “He called once.”
Apparently about four months after he disappeared, she got a blocked call around midnight. Said she knew it was Vince immediately because he cleared his throat a certain way before talking. Married people notice weird things like that.
He told her not to tell police he was alive because “it would ruin everything.” Then he asked if any lawsuits had reached the house yet.
That part made me sick honestly.
Not “how are the kids.”
Not “I’m sorry.”
Lawsuits.
She admitted she’d been covering small things for him ever since. Mail sent to a PO box. One storage bill paid in cash through a friend. Nothing huge. At least that’s what she claimed.
Then she said something that didn’t fit.
“He said the money was never actually gone.”
I asked what money.
She looked confused and said the company money. The missing bankruptcy funds everybody assumed Vince stole before disappearing.
Almost $600,000 was unaccounted for when everything collapsed.
I went home that night and dug through old company files I never finished sorting because honestly the whole thing made me depressed to even look at.
Around 2 AM I found an unopened FedEx envelope shoved inside a project binder from our Biloxi job.
Sent three days before Vince vanished.
Inside was a cashier’s check receipt.
Six hundred thousand dollars.
Purchaser listed:
Me.
I never bought it.