Chapter 8
Leverage.
That one word explained eleven years of my marriage.
Michael didn’t need Ethan to be his biological son.
He needed Ethan to be mine.
The person I would sacrifice anything for.
The person Michael could threaten without ever touching me.
The person who kept me afraid.
I held Ethan until his crying stopped.
He didn’t understand what the word meant in Michael’s world.
I prayed he never would.
That night, Thomas arrived.
I saw him through a glass door before he saw me.
He was forty now.
Gray beginning at his temples.
Older.
Lean.
But still unmistakably Thomas.
For a second, I was twenty-eight again.
Sitting in his car.
Crying.
Making the most complicated decision of my life.
Then he turned.
Our eyes met.
Neither of us moved.
Finally, Thomas said, “Sarah.”
I folded my arms.
“You knew.”
His face tightened.
“Yes.”
The answer hurt more because he didn’t lie.
“How long?”
“Five years.”
“You’ve known for five years that Ethan is your son.”
“I knew there was a test.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
He lowered his eyes.
“Yes.”
I slapped him.
The sound echoed through the waiting room.
Dana stepped forward.
Thomas held up a hand.
“It’s okay.”
“No,” I said. “It’s not.”
He touched his cheek.
“I deserved that.”
“You deserved worse.”
“I know.”
“Don’t agree with me like that makes you noble.”
“I’m not trying to.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Your father asked me not to.”
I laughed bitterly.
“Wonderful. Another man making decisions for me.”
Thomas flinched.
“He believed telling you immediately would put you and Ethan in danger.”
“And you believed him?”
“After I met Michael, yes.”
My anger paused.
“You met Michael?”
Thomas nodded.
“Once.”
“When?”
“Five years ago.”
“Before Dad died?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Michael came to me.”
My stomach tightened.
“What did he want?”
“To make sure I stayed away.”
I stared at him.
“He knew before Dad tested you?”
“Apparently.”
“How?”
“I don’t know.”
“What did he say?”
Thomas looked through the glass toward the hallway.
“He told me Ethan was happy and that if I interfered, I would destroy his life.”
“That sounds almost reasonable for Michael.”
“It didn’t stop there.”
Of course it didn’t.
“He showed me photographs of my mother’s house.”
My anger cooled.
“He threatened your mother?”
“He never said the words.”
“He didn’t need to.”
“No.”
I knew that method.
Michael loved threats that could later be called misunderstandings.
Thomas continued.
“He showed me pictures of you and Ethan too.”
The surveillance photographs.
“How did Dad get involved?”
“Your father contacted me about a month later.”
“Why?”
“He believed Michael was doing something illegal.”
“Did he tell you about Melissa?”
“Yes.”
“What did she know?”
“Financial records. Payments. Shell companies.”
“And my father?”
“He wanted evidence strong enough to make sure Michael couldn’t intimidate his way out.”
I thought of my last argument with Dad.
All the things I wished I could change.
“Why test paternity?”
“Your father thought it might protect Ethan if Michael became dangerous.”
“Did he tell you Michael knew?”
“Yes.”
“And then Dad died.”
Thomas nodded.
“Six days after the test.”
“Did you think Michael killed him?”
“I didn’t know.”
“But you were scared enough to disappear.”
“I moved my mother to Colorado.”
I hated that part of me understood.
“Why didn’t you contact me later?”
“Because Michael sent me a photograph every year.”
My skin went cold.
“What kind?”
“Ethan.”
I stared.
“Every year?”
“On his birthday.”
Eleven-year-old Ethan had never met Thomas.
But Thomas had watched him grow through photographs sent as threats.
“What did the messages say?”
“Usually nothing.”
“That was the point.”
Thomas reached into his coat.
Ortiz immediately stepped forward.
Thomas slowly removed his phone.
“I saved all of them.”
Ortiz took it.
Thomas looked at me.
“The last one was different.”
“What did it say?”
“He sent it two months ago.”
The beginning of the worst phase of the custody fight.
“What did it say?”
Thomas’s voice dropped.
“Soon he won’t be your problem or mine.”
My stomach turned.
“Why didn’t you go to police?”
“I did.”
I blinked.
“What?”
“I reported it in Colorado.”
Ortiz frowned.
“To which agency?”
Thomas gave him details.
Ortiz walked away to make a call.
“You reported Michael?”
“Yes.”
“Then why did nobody tell me?”
“I don’t know.”
Ten minutes later, Ortiz returned furious.
The report existed.
It had been forwarded to local authorities here.
Then marked insufficient for investigation because the message contained no explicit threat.
I wanted to scream.
Thomas sat across from me.
“Sarah, I didn’t come here to take Ethan from you.”
“I didn’t think you did.”
“I don’t expect him to call me Dad.”
“Stop.”
He did.
“I haven’t even told him.”
Thomas looked devastated.
“I know.”
“He’s already dealing with enough.”
“I know.”
“I don’t know what happens next.”
“I’m not asking you to know.”
That made me angrier somehow.
Before I could answer, Ortiz entered again.
“We found Daniel.”
Everyone stood.
“Alive?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“At his attorney’s office.”
“Did he surrender?”
“Yes.”
“What about Michael?”
Ortiz shook his head.
“No.”
Daniel agreed to speak in exchange for consideration.
Not immunity.
Consideration.
By midnight, investigators had the story.
Daniel admitted helping Michael create shell companies.
He admitted knowing about altered financial records.
He admitted Melissa discovered the fraud.
He admitted Michael became obsessed with stopping her from exposing him.
But Daniel denied hurting her.
Then he gave investigators something worse.
Michael had met Melissa the night she died.
Daniel knew because Michael called him afterward.
“What did Michael say?” I asked.
Ortiz hesitated.
“He said, ‘She won’t be talking anymore.’”
My hands went cold.
“Did Daniel ask what that meant?”
“He says he was afraid to.”
“And my father died four days later.”
“Yes.”
“Heart attack.”
“Yes.”
“Was it really?”
Ortiz didn’t answer.
Daniel told investigators Michael met my father the day before his death.
Nobody had known that.
Not me.
Not Rebecca.
Michael came to our house that evening acting normal.
The next morning, Dad collapsed in his kitchen.
Natural causes.
No autopsy.
He had a history of high blood pressure.
Case closed.
Until now.
“We can’t prove Michael caused your father’s death,” Ortiz said.
“But you think it’s suspicious.”
“Yes.”
“Is that why Michael ran?”
“Maybe.”
“What else did Daniel tell you?”
Ortiz glanced toward Ethan’s room.
“Let’s talk somewhere private.”
We walked down the hall.
“Michael had plans to leave the country.”
My throat tightened.
“With Ethan?”
“Daniel believes so.”
“When?”
“After the custody hearing.”
“If he won?”
“Either way.”
I stared at him.
“That makes no sense.”
“It does if custody was never the actual goal.”
“What was?”
“Access.”
I understood immediately.
Court-ordered parenting time.
The legal right to take Ethan somewhere without raising immediate alarms.
“Where was he going?”
“Belize first. Possibly somewhere else afterward.”
“Why?”
“Daniel says Michael believed federal investigators were getting close to the company.”
“So he planned to run.”
“Yes.”
“And take Ethan as leverage.”
“Possibly.”
I felt physically ill.
“Against who?”
“Against you.”
“For what?”
“The money your father hid.”
I stared at him.
“The four hundred thousand?”
Ortiz shook his head.
“That appears to be only a fraction.”
“How much?”
“We’re still tracing it.”
“How much, Detective?”
He exhaled.
“Your father may have diverted nearly nine million dollars before his death.”
I couldn’t speak.
Nine million.
“No.”
“He apparently placed it into structures designed to benefit Ethan when he became an adult.”
“That’s why Michael wants him.”
“Yes.”
“He thinks Ethan can unlock it?”
“Or you can.”
“I don’t know anything about it.”
“Michael may not believe that.”
Then Ortiz’s phone rang.
He answered.
His expression changed instantly.
“What time?”
He listened.
“Lock down every exit.”
He hung up.
“What?”
He looked toward Ethan’s room.
A cold terror moved through me.
“What happened?”
“One of the officers stationed downstairs just found a maintenance employee unconscious in a service stairwell.”
My blood froze.
“Why does that matter?”
May you like
“Because his uniform is missing.”
Then the fire alarm started.
