Chapter 8
The DNA results from the grave arrived that afternoon.
The body was not Richard Carter.
It was a man named Harold Pierce, a homeless veteran who had disappeared five years earlier.
Detective Cole stared at the report for a long time.
“This is no longer one attempted homicide,” he said.
Rachel looked at him.
“What is it?”
“Potential murder, identity fraud, insurance fraud, conspiracy, financial crimes, falsification of medical records, falsification of burial records…”
Lucas laughed darkly.
“You forgot destroying a family.”
Cole looked at him.
“That one isn’t criminal.”
“It should be.”
Nathan remained quiet.
He had spent hours staring at the photograph of Richard with Victoria and Evan.
Rachel finally took the phone away.
“You need to rest.”
“My father watched us bury another man.”
“We don’t know exactly what happened.”
“He let Mom think he was dead.”
Margaret sat near the window.
She had barely spoken since seeing the photograph.
Nathan looked at her.
“He let all of us think he was dead.”
Margaret whispered, “I held his hand.”
Rachel looked at her.
“What?”
“At the hospital.”
Margaret’s eyes were distant.
“When Richard died, I held his hand.”
Nathan’s voice softened slightly.
“Mom.”
“He was cold.”
She shook her head.
“I watched them cover his face.”
Rachel felt a chill.
“Could it have been Harold already?”
“No.”
Margaret looked certain.
“It was Richard.”
Cole leaned forward.
“Explain.”
“I knew every scar on that man’s hands. His wedding ring had rubbed a mark into his finger after thirty years.”
She touched her own ring.
“The man in the hospital was Richard.”
“Then something happened after he was pronounced dead,” Cole said.
Margaret closed her eyes.
“Dr. Brent.”
Cole nodded.
“Exactly.”
Rachel thought about Nathan.
Declared dead but alive.
Transferred through the hospital system.
A compromised doctor.
A corrupted funeral process.
Richard had used the same trick five years earlier.
Only Richard’s disappearance had worked.
Nathan’s almost did.
“Richard taught them how,” Rachel whispered.
Everyone looked at her.
“He knew how to fake a death because he had already done it.”
Nathan stared at the floor.
“And he helped them do it to me.”
Rachel didn’t answer.
Her phone buzzed.
An unknown number.
She almost ignored it.
Then a text appeared.
YOU WANT YOUR SISTER ALIVE?
Rachel stopped breathing.
Nathan saw her face.
“What?”
She showed Cole.
Another message arrived.
COME ALONE.
Then an address.
Cole took the phone.
“No.”
Rachel stared at him.
“That’s Jenna.”
“We don’t know that.”
A photograph arrived.
Jenna sat on the floor with tape across her mouth.
Her hands were tied.
A bruise covered one side of her face.
Rachel’s anger vanished.
Whatever Jenna had done, she was still her sister.
“She’s alive.”
Cole studied the image.
“We can trace metadata.”
Another message.
NO POLICE.
THIRTY MINUTES.
Nathan shook his head.
“You’re not going.”
Rachel looked at him.
“That’s my sister.”
“She helped them try to kill me.”
“And now somebody has her tied to a chair.”
“She made choices.”
Rachel stared at him.
“So did your mother.”
Margaret flinched.
Nathan looked away.
Rachel immediately regretted the words.
But they were true.
Everyone in this nightmare had crossed lines because they thought family justified it.
Rachel refused to become another person who watched someone die to make a point.
Cole said, “You’re not going alone.”
“They’ll see police.”
“We won’t be close.”
Rachel looked at the address.
An abandoned storage facility.
“Do it.”
Twenty-six minutes later, Rachel drove into the facility alone.
A tracking device was hidden beneath her car.
Cole’s team remained several blocks away.
Her phone rang.
Unknown number.
She answered.
A distorted voice said, “Unit 218.”
Rachel drove past rows of metal doors until she found it.
The door was open six inches.
She stepped out.
“Jenna?”
Nothing.
Rachel raised the door.
Jenna sat inside exactly as shown in the picture.
Rachel rushed forward.
“Jenna!”
Her sister’s eyes widened wildly.
She shook her head.
Rachel stopped.
A thin wire stretched across the floor.
She almost stepped on it.
Jenna screamed through the tape.
Rachel backed away.
A speaker crackled from the ceiling.
“Still impulsive, Rachel.”
A man’s voice.
Nathan’s voice.
But not Nathan.
Evan.
Rachel stared upward.
“Where are you?”
“Close enough.”
“You kidnapped Jenna.”
“She tried to run.”
Rachel looked at her sister.
Jenna was crying.
“What happens if I cross the wire?”
Evan laughed softly.
“Nothing dramatic. An alarm. Then I leave.”
Rachel exhaled.
“Why am I here?”
“I wanted to meet the woman my brother chose.”
“You tried to kill him.”
“I did not.”
“You helped.”
“No.”
Rachel’s anger surged.
“Stop lying.”
“I wanted the company. I wanted him frightened. I wanted him exposed.”
“Exposed for what?”
“For being loved.”
Rachel stared at the speaker.
There was something broken beneath Evan’s calm voice.
“You hate him because he had a mother?”
“He had my mother.”
“Margaret was never your mother.”
“She could have been.”
Rachel paused.
That was the center of it.
Not money.
Not really.
A child who had grown into a man believing another child had stolen his life.
“You think Nathan stole from you.”
“He lived my life.”
“He didn’t know you existed.”
“Convenient.”
“It’s true.”
Silence.
Rachel moved closer to Jenna without crossing the wire.
“What happened at the hospital?”
“Victoria panicked.”
“Your mother gave Nathan the second drug?”
Evan didn’t answer.
“She did.”
“She thought she was correcting a mistake.”
“By killing him?”
“She believed he was already dying from Amelia’s dose.”
Rachel shut her eyes.
“And Brent?”
“Coward.”
“And Richard?”
A longer silence.
Rachel’s heart pounded.
“Where is he?”
“My father is complicated.”
“Your father?”
“He became mine.”
Rachel almost laughed.
“You hated him for choosing Nathan, then accepted him after he abandoned Nathan?”
“People change.”
“No. Richard ran.”
The speaker crackled.
“Careful.”
Rachel knew she had hit something.
“You’re angry at Nathan because Richard loved him first.”
“Richard understood what he did.”
“Did he?”
“Yes.”
“Then why are you all hiding?”
Silence.
Jenna looked at Rachel, tears streaming down her cheeks.
Rachel continued.
“If this was justice, you wouldn’t need fake deaths, forged accounts, drugged nurses, kidnapped women, or dead strangers in graves.”
“Harold was not our decision.”
“Whose was it?”
No answer.
“Richard’s?”
The silence told her enough.
Rachel’s stomach twisted.
“Richard killed him.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t have to.”
Jenna started struggling against the chair.
Rachel looked at her.
“What?”
Jenna made frantic noises through the tape.
Rachel suddenly noticed something in Jenna’s bound hands.
A small object.
A phone.
Hidden between her palms.
Jenna had been recording.
Rachel tried not to look directly at it.
She continued talking.
“Why did Jenna help you?”
Evan laughed.
“Ask her.”
“I’m asking you.”
“Because your sister was tired of being the failure standing beside perfect Rachel.”
Rachel stared at Jenna.
Her sister’s eyes dropped.
The truth hurt because it was believable.
“You paid her?”
“At first.”
“How much?”
“Enough.”
“And later?”
“She began enjoying it.”
Jenna sobbed.
Rachel’s heart broke.
“You forged my login.”
“Yes.”
Jenna squeezed her eyes shut.
“You helped put stolen money in my name.”
A tiny nod.
“Why?”
Jenna’s muffled cry filled the storage unit.
Rachel wanted to tear the tape away.
But first she needed to understand the wire.
She looked around.
A sensor was attached to the wall.
Not explosive.
Likely just a trigger.
Cole had told her not to risk anything.
Then she saw something else.
A small green light above the entrance.
Camera.
Evan could see her.
Rachel said, “You want something from me.”
“Smart.”
“What?”
“Nathan’s shares.”
Rachel laughed.
“You tried this already.”
“He’ll sign for you.”
“No.”
“He almost signed for you before.”
“That was when he thought police were coming for me.”
“They still can.”
“You have no leverage.”
“I have Jenna.”
Rachel looked at her sister.
Then answered quietly.
“No, you don’t.”
Jenna’s eyes widened.
Evan’s voice sharpened.
“What?”
“You think I’ll trade Nathan’s life for hers.”
Rachel swallowed through the pain.
“I won’t.”
Jenna began sobbing harder.
Rachel stared directly at the camera.
“But I will save my sister.”
She grabbed a metal shelf and shoved it forward.
It crashed across the wire.
An alarm screamed.
Rachel ran.
She ripped the tape from Jenna’s mouth.
“Rachel!”
She cut the restraints with a box cutter lying nearby.
“Move!”
Outside, tires screeched.
Cole’s unmarked vehicles rushed into the facility.
A black car burst from behind another building.
Police followed.
Rachel pulled Jenna behind a concrete barrier.
Gunshots were not fired.
Nobody wanted a firefight in a crowded industrial area.
Within seconds, the black car disappeared through a rear access road.
Cole arrived furious.
“I told you not to trigger anything!”
“It worked.”
“You could have been killed.”
“But I wasn’t.”
Jenna collapsed against Rachel.
“I’m sorry.”
Rachel held her shoulders.
“We’ll talk later.”
“No.”
Jenna gripped her shirt.
“You need to know now.”
“Know what?”
“Evan didn’t poison Nathan.”
Rachel stared.
“Victoria did.”
“I know.”
“No.”
Jenna shook her head.
“You don’t understand.”
Her face crumpled.
“Victoria didn’t mean to kill him either.”
Rachel felt a chill.
“Then who did?”
Jenna looked around in terror.
“Richard.”
Rachel stopped.
“What?”
“Richard changed the syringe.”
Jenna’s breath came fast.
“He wanted Nathan dead.”
“Why?”
“Because Nathan found something in the audit none of us knew.”
“What?”
Jenna whispered, “The company was never Richard’s to leave behind.”
Rachel frowned.
“Then whose was it?”
Jenna looked at her.
“Victoria’s father built it using money he stole from her mother’s family.”
Rachel shook her head.
“I don’t understand.”
“Richard discovered documents proving Margaret and Victoria were both legal heirs.”
“So?”
“So if Nathan reopened the estate records, Richard’s financial crimes would come out.”
Rachel’s heart pounded.
“Richard faked his death to escape.”
“Yes.”
“And now?”
“He needs Nathan permanently silent.”
Cole crouched beside them.
“Where is Richard?”
Jenna looked toward him.
“I don’t know.”
“Where is Evan?”
“I don’t know.”
“Victoria?”
“I don’t know.”
Cole’s expression hardened.
“You worked with them for months.”
“They stopped trusting me when Nathan woke up.”
Rachel squeezed her sister’s arm.
“What do you know?”
Jenna swallowed.
“There’s a second plan.”
“What plan?”
Jenna looked at Rachel.
“If Nathan survived, Richard said he had to lose the one thing that made him fight to stay alive.”
Rachel’s blood turned cold.
She thought of herself.
Then Ellie.
Jenna saw it in her face.
“He meant Ellie.”
Rachel stood so quickly she nearly fell.
“Where is my daughter?”
Cole was already calling the protection team.
Nobody answered.
He called again.
Nothing.
Rachel’s heart stopped.
A third call.
Finally, an officer answered.
Cole listened.
His face changed.
“What?”
Rachel grabbed his arm.
“What happened?”
Cole lowered the phone.
“The safe house was breached ten minutes ago.”
Rachel couldn’t breathe.
“Ellie?”
The officer on the other end shouted something.
Cole listened.
May you like
Then looked at Rachel.
“Ellie is missing.”
