Chapter 5
Detective Mills told me to stay somewhere Ryan’s family did not know.
That ruled out my apartment.
My mother’s house.
My office.
Even my best friend’s condo.
Margaret had spent months learning my routines while pretending to be an overinvolved future mother-in-law.
She knew where I bought groceries.
She knew which gym I used.
She knew where Mom lived.
She had once laughed about how easy I was to find.
At the time, I thought it was a joke.
Now I understood it was an observation.
Samantha booked two rooms at a small hotel under her assistant’s name.
Mom came with me.
Charles went home to retrieve old files from my father’s case.
Before he left, I stopped him.
“You’re sure about the voice?”
“No.”
“You said it was Thomas.”
“I said I think it was.”
“What percentage?”
He looked tired.
“Seventy.”
That was enough to terrify me.
“What happened between him and my father?”
Charles sighed.
“More than I told you.”
Of course.
“Tell me now.”
“Daniel and Thomas had a final confrontation three days before your father’s heart attack.”
“About the missing money?”
“Yes.”
“Were you there?”
“No. But your father called me immediately afterward.”
“What did he say?”
Charles hesitated.
“He said Thomas threatened his family.”
My mouth went dry.
“Me?”
“You and your mother.”
Mom looked away.
I stared at her.
“You knew that too.”
“Yes.”
“And you never thought I should know before marrying Thomas’s son?”
“We didn’t know Ryan was his son when you started dating.”
I laughed in disbelief.
“Hawthorne isn’t exactly a common name.”
“Thomas used another surname professionally for years.”
“So nobody checked?”
Mom’s eyes filled with tears.
“I checked after you became engaged.”
I stopped.
“When?”
“Three months ago.”
My voice dropped.
“You knew.”
“I suspected.”
“You knew Margaret was connected to Dad.”
“Yes.”
“And you let me marry Ryan.”
“I tried to warn you.”
“When?”
“I told you I didn’t trust her.”
“That is not the same as telling me she may have helped steal millions from my father!”
My mother flinched.
I hated myself for shouting.
I did not stop.
“You let me stand at that altar.”
“I had no proof Ryan knew anything.”
“So you gambled with my life?”
“No!”
She covered her mouth.
Then whispered, “I was afraid you would hate me.”
That silenced me.
“What?”
“You loved him. Every time I questioned him, you accused me of refusing to let you grow up.”
I remembered those arguments.
Mom saying the wedding felt rushed.
Me saying she was being controlling.
Mom asking why Margaret cared so much about my inheritance.
Me telling her to stop judging Ryan’s family.
I had pushed her away.
But she had also hidden the most important part.
Both could be true.
“I might have hated you,” I said quietly. “For a week. A month. But I wouldn’t have married him.”
Mom started crying.
“I know.”
I sat on the bed.
Anger suddenly became exhaustion.
Everything hurt.
My shoulder.
My jaw.
My heart.
Samantha touched my mother’s arm.
“Right now, guilt is a luxury. We need facts.”
Mom nodded.
That was why I liked Samantha.
She never let emotion stop the next move.
At six that evening, Detective Mills called.
They had found Ryan’s car.
Abandoned at a shopping center.
No sign of Ryan.
No sign of Margaret.
No sign of the black SUV seen leaving my apartment building.
“Do you believe he’s in danger?” I asked.
“We don’t know.”
“He went with them voluntarily.”
“From the lobby footage, yes.”
“Then why abandon the car?”
“We’re investigating.”
I sat beside the hotel window.
The city lights were coming on.
Less than twenty-four hours ago, I had been dancing at my own wedding.
Now police were looking for my husband.
My lawyer was preparing to end the marriage.
And a dead man might be alive.
Samantha’s phone rang.
She answered.
Listened.
Then looked at me.
“That was my office.”
“What?”
“Someone filed a document this afternoon.”
“What document?”
“A petition claiming you are mentally incompetent.”
I laughed.
Then realized she wasn’t joking.
“What?”
“Ryan filed it.”
My stomach dropped.
“He’s missing.”
“The petition was electronically filed at three fourteen.”
“After Margaret took him.”
“Yes.”
“What does it say?”
Samantha opened her laptop.
Her assistant had emailed a copy.
I read the first page.
Ryan claimed I had suffered a severe psychological breakdown after the wedding.
That I had become violent.
Paranoid.
Delusional.
That I had accused him and Margaret of trying to steal from me.
That I was a danger to myself.
My hands shook.
“He’s trying to have me committed?”
“He is trying to establish a record.”
“Why?”
Samantha scrolled.
Then stopped.
Her face hardened.
“What?”
“He requests emergency authority to manage marital assets while you receive psychiatric evaluation.”
I stood.
“He’s trying to steal my money through court.”
“He’s trying.”
“Can he?”
“Not like this.”
“Then why file it?”
“To create chaos. To force hearings. To make your accusations look like symptoms.”
I stared at the allegations.
Every true thing I said had been rewritten as evidence I was unstable.
My father’s trust.
Margaret’s attack.
Thomas being alive.
All described as paranoid fantasies.
Then I saw the exhibits.
A letter from a psychiatrist.
I read the name.
Dr. Leonard Price.
I knew him.
“He treated me.”
Samantha looked at me.
“When?”
“After my dad died. I was nine.”
The letter claimed I had a history of trauma-related hallucinations and paranoia.
“That’s false.”
“Did you hallucinate?”
“No.”
“Any psychosis diagnosis?”
“No.”
“Any hospitalization?”
“No.”
She photographed every page.
“This letter is dated yesterday.”
I stared at it.
“Dr. Price hasn’t seen me in twenty years.”
“Then we have a serious problem.”
Mom was already searching the name on her phone.
“He still practices.”
Samantha took over.
Within fifteen minutes, she had Dr. Price’s office on speaker.
He came on the line sounding confused.
“I have not written any letter concerning Emily Carter.”
Samantha’s eyes sharpened.
“Are you certain?”
“Absolutely.”
She emailed it to him.
We waited.
Then he returned.
“This is not my signature.”
I exhaled.
“Can you put that in writing?”
“Yes.”
Samantha looked almost pleased.
“They made a mistake.”
“What?”
“They overreached.”
The petition meant Ryan or someone using his identity was actively committing fraud.
And now we had proof.
Then Dr. Price said something else.
“There is another issue.”
“What?” Samantha asked.
“Someone requested Mrs. Carter’s childhood medical records six weeks ago.”
My blood ran cold.
“Who?”
“The request included an authorization signed by Emily.”
“I never signed anything.”
“I suspected that when I saw this petition.”
“Where were the records sent?”
He gave an email address.
Samantha wrote it down.
The domain belonged to a law firm.
Not Charles’s.
Not Samantha’s.
A firm called Whitmore, Cole & Finch.
Charles called while we were researching it.
He sounded breathless.
“I found something.”
“What?”
“Your father’s files.”
“About Thomas?”
“Yes.”
He paused.
“And Margaret.”
Samantha put him on speaker.
“What did you find?”
“A handwritten note Daniel left for me.”
“What does it say?”
Paper rustled.
Charles read slowly.
“If anything happens to me, look at Margaret Vale, Thomas Hawthorne, and WCF.”
Samantha stared at me.
“WCF.”
Whitmore, Cole & Finch.
The same law firm that obtained my childhood psychiatric records.
The room felt smaller.
“What else?” I asked.
“There is an account number.”
“What account?”
“I don’t know. And a name.”
“Whose?”
Charles hesitated.
“Linda Carter.”
My mother went completely white.
I looked at her.
“Mom?”
She stared at the phone.
Charles continued.
“The note says, ‘Ask Linda what she signed.’”
I stood.
“What did you sign?”
Mom began shaking.
“I don’t know.”
“Mom.”
“It was twenty-four years ago.”
“What did you sign?”
She covered her face.
Then slowly lowered her hands.
“Your father came home one night terrified.”
I waited.
“He gave me papers and told me to sign them.”
“What papers?”
“I didn’t read them.”
“Why?”
“Because he was shouting that we had to leave.”
“Leave where?”
“The country.”
My stomach dropped.
“We were supposed to disappear?”
“Yes.”
“What happened?”
“The next morning, he changed his mind.”
“Why?”
“He said running would give Thomas everything.”
I sat down.
“What did the papers do?”
“I don’t know.”
“Think.”
She pressed her fingers against her temples.
“He said something about guardianship.”
“For me?”
“Yes.”
“And ownership.”
“Ownership of what?”
“I don’t remember.”
Samantha crouched in front of her.
“Linda. This matters. Did Daniel ever ask you to sign away your right to inherit?”
Mom looked up.
Then froze.
“What?”
“Did he create a contingency if he died?”
Her face changed.
“I signed something naming another guardian for Emily.”
My heart stopped.
“Who?”
Mom whispered, “Charles.”
There was silence on the phone.
I looked at it.
Charles sounded stunned.
“I was never told.”
Mom shook her head.
“He changed it afterward.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
Samantha stood slowly.
“If the original document named Charles as guardian and someone obtained that document…”
“What?”
“They could use it to argue that Daniel believed Linda was unfit.”
I stared at my mother.
Just like Ryan was now trying to argue I was unfit.
Same strategy.
Different generation.
Then Samantha’s laptop chimed.
New email.
From her assistant.
She opened it.
Her face lost all color.
“What is it?”
She turned the screen toward me.
A motion had just been filed in court.
Attached was an affidavit.
Signed twenty-four years ago.
By my mother.
The document said that if my father died, she voluntarily surrendered control over my inherited property.
The designated financial guardian was Thomas Hawthorne.
My mother stared at her own signature.
“I never signed that.”
Samantha enlarged the page.
Mom leaned forward.
“That is my signature.”
I felt cold.
“But?”
May you like
Her eyes filled with horror.
“The page I signed was blank.”
