Chapter 5
I didn’t believe him.
I couldn’t.
Richard Hale was fifty-two.
Vanessa was thirty-six.
He had been my father’s attorney before he ever became mine.
He had attended my wedding.
He had stood beside Vanessa and me in photographs.
He had brought flowers when Lily was born.
I remembered him holding her in the hospital.
“Beautiful girl,” he had said.
Now that memory made me sick.
Morales took my phone.
The call had disconnected.
“Did you trace it?”
An officer across the hall shook his head.
“Internet call.”
I stared through the glass at Caleb.
He had heard enough to understand something was wrong.
Morales asked, “Did you know your wife had a relationship with Richard Hale?”
“No.”
“Did your brother?”
“I don’t know.”
We went back into Caleb’s room.
I closed the door.
“Richard says he’s Lily’s father.”
Caleb stared at me.
“What?”
“You heard me.”
“No.”
“You said you slept with Vanessa five years ago.”
“I did.”
“And Richard?”
“I had no idea.”
“Think.”
Caleb rubbed both hands over his face.
“I saw messages.”
“What kind?”
“Flirty. Secret meetings.”
“When?”
“Last year.”
“That doesn’t prove five years ago.”
“No.”
Morales stepped forward.
“Mr. Carter, when did your wife first meet Richard Hale?”
I answered immediately.
“At our wedding.”
Then I stopped.
No.
That wasn’t true.
Richard had handled some legal work for Vanessa’s father years earlier.
I remembered Vanessa mentioning it once.
“They may have known each other before me.”
Morales wrote something down.
“How long before?”
“I don’t know.”
Caleb suddenly looked at me.
“Dad knew.”
My chest tightened.
“Knew what?”
“Something about Vanessa and Richard.”
“How?”
“I heard them arguing before Dad died.”
“When?”
“Maybe two months before his heart attack.”
“What did they say?”
“I didn’t hear everything.”
“Caleb.”
“I heard Dad tell Richard, ‘Stay away from my family.’”
I felt dizzy.
“Why didn’t you ever tell me?”
“I thought it was business.”
Our father had died from a heart attack at sixty-three.
Sudden.
Massive.
He had been in his office late one evening.
Richard was one of the last people who saw him alive.
A thought entered my head.
I hated it immediately.
Morales noticed my expression.
“What?”
“My father.”
“What about him?”
“He died six years ago.”
“I know.”
“Richard was with him that evening.”
Morales didn’t react.
“Natural death?”
“Yes.”
“Autopsy?”
“No. His doctor signed off on cardiac arrest. Dad had high blood pressure.”
“Don’t jump ahead.”
Too late.
My mind was already running.
Dad discovered something.
Dad confronted Richard.
Dad died.
Six years later, Richard was stealing from Dad’s trusts and claiming my daughter was his.
Coincidence suddenly felt like a luxury.
At sunrise, police moved my children to a secure family advocacy center.
I was allowed to see them under supervision.
Lily ran into me.
“Daddy!”
I knelt.
She wrapped her arms around my neck.
For a few seconds, everything else disappeared.
Then she whispered, “Mommy came last night.”
I pulled back.
“What?”
Dana, the CPS worker, looked sharply at her.
“When did you see Mommy?”
Lily pointed toward a window.
“She was outside.”
My heart pounded.
“What did she do?”
“She said shhh.”
Lily pressed one finger to her lips.
“She took my picture.”
I swallowed my anger.
“Did she say anything else?”
Lily nodded.
“What?”
“She said I’m going to live with my real daddy.”
The room went silent.
Ethan, sitting across from us, started crying.
I held Lily tighter.
She didn’t understand.
Thank God she didn’t understand.
“Who did Mommy say your real daddy is?”
Lily shrugged.
“She didn’t.”
I looked toward Dana.
“My children need protection.”
“They have it.”
“Vanessa walked into my mother’s house hours after being arrested for abusing Lily.”
“I know.”
“And somehow she got released.”
Dana’s mouth tightened.
“The court will know that too.”
I sat with Ethan next.
He looked guilty again.
“What?”
He picked at his sleeve.
“I knew Mom had a boyfriend.”
I felt another blow land.
“How?”
“I heard her talking.”
“Who was she talking to?”
“I never saw him.”
“What did she call him?”
Ethan thought.
“R.”
Richard.
Maybe.
“What did she say?”
“She said Dad was stupid.”
I almost smiled because it was so ordinary compared to everything else.
“She said that a lot?”
“Yes.”
“What else?”
“She said after Grandpa died, everything should’ve been hers.”
That made no sense.
Vanessa had no claim to my father’s estate.
Unless she thought she did.
“Why would Grandpa’s things be hers?”
“I don’t know.”
Ethan suddenly remembered.
“She had a picture.”
“What picture?”
“Grandpa and Mom.”
My heartbeat changed.
“Together?”
He nodded.
“Where?”
“By a pool.”
I had never seen such a picture.
“Was Richard there?”
“I don’t know.”
“Where is the picture?”
“In Mom’s closet.”
Police searched the house that afternoon.
They found no photograph in Vanessa’s closet.
But they found something else.
A locked metal box behind shoes on a high shelf.
Inside were letters.
Dozens.
Some addressed to Vanessa.
Some to Richard.
Several to my father.
Morales brought me into an interview room.
He placed a clear evidence sleeve on the table.
Inside was a handwritten letter.
My father’s handwriting.
MARK MUST NEVER KNOW.
My throat tightened.
“Can I read it?”
Morales nodded.
The letter was dated six years earlier.
Three weeks before Dad died.
Richard,
This ends now.
You have manipulated Vanessa long enough, and I will not allow you to use my son’s marriage to gain control of Carter Construction.
I know about the payments.
I know about the forged documents.
I know what happened before Mark married her.
If you ever contact Vanessa again, I will go to the police and the Bar Association.
Mark must never know until I can prove everything. He loves her, and I will not destroy my son’s family with accusations I cannot yet support.
I have moved the children’s future inheritance into protected trusts.
You will remain trustee temporarily because removing you now could alert you.
Do not mistake patience for weakness.
This is your final warning.
Edward Carter
I read it twice.
Then a third time.
My father knew.
He knew Richard was manipulating Vanessa before our marriage.
He knew about forged documents.
Payments.
Something that happened before I married her.
And instead of telling me, he tried to protect me.
Morales placed another letter down.
This one was from Vanessa to Richard.
Undated.
You promised marrying Mark would solve everything.
You said Edward would eventually accept me and stop watching the accounts.
Instead, he watches me more.
I cannot keep pretending forever.
You said if I had Mark’s child, Edward would finally trust me.
But now I’m pregnant and I don’t know whose baby this is.
C.
One letter.
One initial.
C.
I stared at it.
“Pregnant?”
Morales nodded.
“The timing appears to correspond with Ethan.”
My head snapped up.
“No.”
“We don’t know.”
“Ethan is mine.”
“We don’t know,” he repeated.
I stood so quickly the chair scraped backward.
“No.”
First Lily.
Now Ethan.
My entire life had become a question mark.
Morales stayed calm.
“Sit down.”
I didn’t.
“I raised them.”
“Yes.”
“They’re mine.”
“I’m not arguing that.”
“Then stop talking like DNA changes that.”
Morales nodded once.
Fair.
I sat.
“What does she mean marrying me would solve everything?”
“We’re investigating.”
“Richard wanted my company.”
“That appears possible.”
“Why?”
“Money.”
“It wasn’t worth enough back then.”
“Maybe it wasn’t only the company.”
Morales slid another document across the table.
It was a copy of a property deed.
My father had owned forty acres outside Frisco.
At the time of his death, it had been worth perhaps three million dollars.
Now, because of commercial development, it was worth closer to thirty million.
I knew the land well.
What I didn’t know was that a mineral and development rights agreement had apparently been executed shortly before Dad died.
Richard’s shell company was listed as beneficiary.
My signature appeared at the bottom.
I had never signed it.
“That’s forged.”
“We believe so.”
“Vanessa?”
“Possibly.”
My phone buzzed.
A text from Mom.
A photograph.
She had gone through old family albums.
The picture Ethan described was there.
My father.
Vanessa.
A swimming pool.
And standing at the edge of the image, almost cropped out, was Richard Hale.
The date on the back was twelve years ago.
A year before I met Vanessa.
My wife had known Richard before she ever met me.
Maybe she had met me because of Richard.
I felt physically ill.
Then Morales received a call.
He listened.
His face changed.
“What?”
He ended the call.
“We found Mr. Hale’s Mercedes.”
“Where?”
“Airport parking.”
“He left?”
“Maybe.”
“Vanessa?”
“No sign of her.”
He paused.
“But there was blood in the trunk.”
My stomach tightened.
“Whose?”
“We don’t know yet.”
Morales stood.
“There was also a child’s pink hair bow.”
I stopped breathing.
Lily had worn pink bows almost every day for the past year.
But Lily was safe.
I had seen her.
So whose bow was it?
Then my phone rang.
Mom.
I answered.
Her voice was shaking.
“Mark.”
“What?”
“I found another photograph.”
“Of what?”
“Vanessa.”
Mom started crying.
“She’s holding a baby.”
I waited.
“The date is thirteen years ago.”
My heart stopped.
Vanessa and I had been married eleven years.
“What baby?”
Mom whispered the answer.
“A little boy.”
May you like
Then she said something even stranger.
“And Richard is standing beside her like the father.”
