Chapter 5
Detective Ortiz took the phone from my hand.
“Do not call him back.”
“I wasn’t going to.”
He looked at Dana.
“We need to move them.”
My heart jumped.
“Move us where?”
“Somewhere Mr. Carter doesn’t know.”
“He already knows we’re at a hotel.”
“We don’t know that.”
“He called thirty seconds after Ethan showed us the key.”
Ortiz’s expression changed.
That possibility had occurred to him too.
He looked around the room.
Then he stood.
“Everybody leave your phones here.”
“What?”
“If there’s a tracker, we need to isolate it.”
Dana grabbed her bag.
Ortiz stopped her.
“Your phone too.”
Within ten minutes, another detective arrived.
She carried small evidence bags.
Every device went inside.
My phone.
Dana’s.
Ethan’s tablet.
Even the hotel room key card was replaced.
We left through a side exit and were driven to a different hotel nearly an hour away.
It was after midnight when Ethan finally fell asleep again.
I didn’t.
At 2:17 a.m., Detective Ortiz returned.
He had Ethan’s brass key in an evidence envelope.
“The storage unit is real.”
My chest tightened.
“You opened it?”
“Not yet.”
“Why not?”
“We’re obtaining a warrant.”
“It’s rented in Rebecca’s name.”
“She disappeared.”
“She didn’t disappear.”
“She stopped answering investigators.”
I looked away.
Ortiz studied me.
“You spoke to her.”
It wasn’t a question.
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Tonight.”
“Where is she?”
“I don’t know.”
“What did she tell you?”
Dana interrupted.
“Sarah, we need to be careful.”
I shook my head.
“I’m done protecting people who lied to me.”
Then I told Ortiz everything Rebecca had said.
The threats.
The money.
My father.
The storage unit.
When I finished, he remained silent for several seconds.
“Your sister could be in significant legal trouble.”
“I know.”
“Do you believe her?”
“I believe she’s scared.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
I stared at the floor.
“I don’t know.”
The next morning, I woke to the sound of someone knocking.
My heart jumped.
Then Dana called from the adjoining room.
“It’s me.”
I opened the door.
She carried two coffees.
“Warrant was approved.”
I forgot the coffee.
“When are they going?”
“They already went.”
My pulse raced.
“And?”
“Ortiz is coming.”
Twenty minutes later, he arrived with another man.
The man introduced himself as Special Agent Marcus Hale.
Federal financial crimes.
That told me everything before they even sat down.
This was bigger than Michael.
Hale opened a folder.
“The storage unit contained twelve document boxes, three external hard drives, two laptops, and approximately eighty thousand dollars in cash.”
I stared.
“That’s what Ethan almost exposed?”
“Possibly.”
“Was it Michael’s?”
“The unit is in Rebecca’s name.”
“Of course it is.”
Hale continued.
“We also found copies of passports.”
“Whose?”
“Several people.”
“Mine?”
He paused.
“Yes.”
My skin crawled.
“Ethan’s?”
“Yes.”
I felt sick.
“Why would Michael have Ethan’s passport?”
“Did your son have one?”
“No.”
Hale and Ortiz exchanged a look.
“What?”
Hale slid a copy across the table.
It showed Ethan’s photograph.
His name.
His birthday.
A passport number.
I stared at it.
“That’s fake.”
“We believe so.”
“Why?”
“We don’t know yet.”
“Was Michael planning to take him somewhere?”
“We can’t assume that.”
But everyone in the room was thinking it.
I looked toward the bedroom door.
Ethan was watching television with headphones.
“He told Ethan he’d never see me again if he chose me.”
Dana’s face tightened.
Hale closed the folder.
“There’s more.”
There was always more.
“One hard drive contained corporate records. Your husband appears to have used several shell companies.”
“To hide money?”
“Among other things.”
“What does that mean?”
“We’re still reviewing.”
“Hale.”
He looked at me.
“What does that mean?”
His expression stayed professional.
“Some companies received payments from clients your husband’s primary company never reported.”
“Tax fraud.”
“Potentially.”
“Anything else?”
“One company owns property.”
“Where?”
“Three states.”
“What kind of property?”
“Rental homes. Commercial units. Two vacant lots.”
I laughed quietly.
Michael told the court he could barely afford our mortgage.
Meanwhile, he owned buildings I had never heard about.
“How much are they worth?”
“Several million dollars combined.”
Dana swore under her breath.
“And he was fighting me over child support.”
Hale’s voice softened slightly.
“Money often isn’t the point.”
“What is?”
“Control.”
I looked at him.
He had figured Michael out in less than a day.
There was another knock.
Ortiz opened the door.
A uniformed officer said something quietly.
Ortiz turned to me.
“We found your sister.”
I stood.
“Where?”
“Hospital.”
My anger vanished.
“What happened?”
“She was in a traffic collision early this morning.”
My stomach dropped.
“Lily?”
“Your niece is okay.”
“Rebecca?”
“Conscious.”
I grabbed my coat.
Dana followed.
At the hospital, Rebecca looked smaller than I remembered.
A bruise covered one side of her face.
Her right wrist was wrapped.
Lily sat beside her eating crackers.
When Lily saw me, she ran into my arms.
“Aunt Sarah!”
I hugged her hard.
Rebecca started crying.
“I’m sorry.”
I looked at her.
Despite everything, seeing her hurt ripped through me.
“What happened?”
“A truck pushed me off the road.”
Ortiz, standing near the doorway, became alert.
“Pushed you?”
“It came up behind me.”
“Did you see the driver?”
“No.”
“License plate?”
“No.”
“Make?”
“Dark pickup.”
Michael drove a dark pickup.
Rebecca saw my expression.
“It wasn’t his truck.”
“How do you know?”
“Different headlights.”
Ortiz wrote something down.
“Where were you going?”
Rebecca hesitated.
“To the police.”
I stared at her.
“You were going to turn yourself in?”
“I was going to tell them everything.”
She looked at Lily.
“I’m tired of being scared.”
For the first time since the courthouse, my anger toward her softened.
Not disappeared.
But softened.
Rebecca looked at Ortiz.
“There’s someone else you need to investigate.”
“Who?”
She swallowed.
“Michael’s business partner.”
I frowned.
“Daniel Price?”
She nodded.
Daniel had been Michael’s best friend since college.
Best man at our wedding.
Godfather to Ethan.
He had stood in my kitchen after the separation and told me he didn’t want to take sides.
Then he testified in a custody affidavit that Michael was a loving father.
“What did Daniel do?”
Rebecca looked at me.
“He knows about everything.”
“Everything?”
“The money. The accounts. The fake vendors.”
Ortiz asked, “Was Mr. Price involved directly?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“He created some of the companies.”
My mind raced.
“Why would Michael hide records from his own partner?”
“Because Michael was stealing from Daniel too.”
That sounded exactly like Michael.
“What about the passport?”
Rebecca frowned.
“What passport?”
“Ethan has a fake one.”
Her face changed.
“What?”
“You didn’t know?”
“No.”
She looked genuinely terrified.
“Sarah, listen to me.”
“I am.”
“A year ago, Michael asked me to open an account in the Cayman Islands.”
Ortiz stepped closer.
“Did you?”
“No. That was the first time I refused.”
“What happened?”
“He told me he was preparing for an emergency.”
“What kind?”
“He said if things ever went wrong, he needed somewhere nobody could reach.”
My blood went cold.
“And Ethan?”
“I don’t know.”
But I saw something in her eyes.
“What aren’t you saying?”
Rebecca looked toward Lily.
Then back at me.
“Two months ago, Michael asked me whether children needed both parents’ permission to leave the country.”
I stopped breathing.
“What did you tell him?”
“I told him to ask a lawyer.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“He said it was for a client.”
“Rebecca!”
“I didn’t know!”
Lily flinched.
I immediately lowered my voice.
Rebecca covered her face.
“I didn’t know.”
Dana touched my shoulder.
“Sarah.”
I walked to the window.
I wanted to scream.
I wanted to break something.
Instead, I stared at the parking lot.
Then my eyes caught on a familiar dark SUV.
Daniel Price was standing beside it.
Looking up at the hospital.
At me.
Our eyes met through the glass.
He lifted his phone.
My phone, still sealed in an evidence bag somewhere, couldn’t ring.
But the hospital room phone rang behind me.
Everyone turned.
Ortiz answered.
“Hello?”
He listened.
Then his expression hardened.
He slowly handed the receiver to me.
“It’s for you.”
I pressed it to my ear.
Daniel’s voice was calm.
“Sarah, if you want to know what Michael was planning to do with Ethan, come downstairs alone.”
I looked out the window.
May you like
Daniel smiled.
Then he added, “And don’t bring the police unless you want your sister’s secrets to become the least of your problems.”
