After three years in prison, I returned home hoping for nothing more than to hug my father, but my stepmother opened the door and said, “He d!ed a year ago. This house is mine now.”

FAKE INVOICES.

IAN.

GRACE.

WILL.

On a table sat a USB drive with a handwritten note.

Watch this first.

I plugged the drive into the cheap phone I’d been given when I was released. The video took a moment to load.

My father appeared on the screen.

He was thin, yellowish, his eyes sunken deep into his face. Behind him I could see his workshop and an old photograph of my mother.

“Michael,” he said, struggling to breathe. “If you’re watching this, you’ve been released. I’m sorry I couldn’t be