Chapter 6
I looked at Detective Hale.
“No.”
Ryan laughed through the speaker.
“You still think Daddy is your hero?”
“Shut up.”
“Ask him.”
The call ended.
I stared at my phone.
Mom touched my shoulder.
“Sarah.”
“No.”
I moved away from her.
“Everybody keeps telling me my father is lying.”
Detective Hale said, “That doesn’t make Ryan truthful.”
“Exactly.”
“But we verify everything.”
I hated those words.
Because verification had already destroyed half my life.
Hale called Dad.
No answer.
Again.
Nothing.
My stomach tightened.
“Where is he?”
“I don’t know.”
We drove to Dad’s house with two patrol units.
The front door was unlocked.
My heart immediately started pounding.
“Dad?”
No answer.
Hale ordered me to remain outside.
I didn’t.
He glared at me.
I followed him anyway.
The house was quiet.
Dad’s coffee mug sat on the kitchen counter.
His jacket was gone.
So were his keys.
No signs of a struggle.
Then Mom found an envelope on the dining-room table.
My name was written across the front.
Sarah.
My hands shook as I opened it.
Inside was one handwritten page.
Sweetheart,
If you are reading this, things have moved faster than I expected. There is one final truth I should have told you years ago.
Your mother did not disappear only because Victor threatened her.
I asked her to disappear.
I stared at the words.
Mom made a broken sound behind me.
I kept reading.
Years ago, I learned Victor believed your mother had hidden evidence inside the title history of your house. The house became bait. As long as Victor believed Claire might return for it, he watched the property instead of watching you.
I convinced your mother that staying legally dead was the safest way to keep you out of his reach.
I was wrong.
Ryan changed everything.
I should have told you the truth when you married him.
I should have told you the truth when Claire contacted me two years ago.
I should have trusted you to make your own choices.
I am sorry.
But there is something more important now.
Do not go to the Fairmont warehouse.
Ryan will tell you he wants to expose Victor.
He does.
But Ryan does not want justice.
He wants revenge.
And revenge has already consumed him.
I know where Ryan is going next.
I am going to stop him before somebody dies.
I love you.
Dad.
I lowered the letter.
“He went after Ryan.”
Hale swore quietly.
Mom was crying.
“This is my fault.”
I turned on her.
“Stop.”
She looked startled.
“I am tired of everybody taking turns blaming themselves while making decisions for me.”
She went silent.
I held up the letter.
“Dad knew Ryan was connected to Victor before I did.”
Hale looked at me.
“Not necessarily.”
“He says he should have told me when I married him.”
Mom’s face changed.
I noticed.
“You knew too.”
She looked away.
I almost screamed.
“You knew?”
“I suspected.”
“When?”
“Before the wedding.”
I felt like someone had hit me again.
“You suspected my fiancé was connected to the man you were hiding from, and you did nothing?”
“I had no proof.”
“You could have called me!”
“If I contacted you directly—”
“Stop saying that!”
My voice echoed through the room.
“You all keep saying you were protecting me. Do you understand what happened because you protected me?”
Nobody answered.
“I married him.”
My voice broke.
“I slept beside him.”
“I trusted him.”
“I gave him access to my life.”
“I defended him to Dad.”
Mom covered her mouth.
“I know.”
“And now I have bruises all over my body because every person who knew something decided I was safer ignorant.”
Hale let the silence sit for a moment.
Then his radio crackled.
An officer had located Dad’s truck.
Outside a storage facility twelve miles away.
We drove there immediately.
The facility manager gave police access.
Dad’s truck was empty.
But one unit had its lock cut.
Inside, we found boxes.
Dozens of them.
Fairmont records.
Old ledgers.
Bank statements.
Property transfers.
Photographs.
Ryan had been collecting evidence.
Hale pulled on gloves.
“This could be enough to explain the last several years.”
Mom picked up one photograph before he could stop her.
Her face turned white.
“What?”
She handed it to me.
It showed Ryan’s father, Michael Cole.
Beside him stood Victor.
And beside Victor stood my father.
The picture was almost twenty-five years old.
I stared at Dad.
Young.
Smiling.
Standing with the two men who were supposedly enemies.
Hale noticed my expression.
“Do you know when this was taken?”
“No.”
Mom did.
“The Fairmont annual retreat.”
I looked at her.
“Dad said he barely dealt with Victor.”
“He hated Victor.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
She sighed.
“Thomas once worked with Fairmont.”
My stomach dropped.
“What?”
“For less than a year.”
“He never told me.”
“He quit after he discovered irregular payments.”
I laughed bitterly.
“Another secret.”
Hale opened one of the ledgers.
Then another.
“I think this is bigger than your trust.”
“How big?”
He looked around at the boxes.
“Potentially hundreds of millions.”
A phone started ringing.
We all froze.
It wasn’t mine.
It wasn’t Mom’s.
The sound came from inside one of the boxes.
Hale carefully opened it.
A cheap prepaid phone was ringing.
He answered on speaker.
Ryan.
“I was wondering when you’d find that.”
Hale’s voice hardened.
“Where is Thomas Bennett?”
“Alive.”
I stepped forward.
“Ryan!”
There was a pause.
“Sarah.”
“Where is my father?”
“He came looking for me.”
“If you hurt him—”
“I didn’t touch him.”
“Then where is he?”
“With Victor.”
Mom went still.
Ryan continued.
“Thomas thought he could negotiate.”
I felt sick.
“What does Victor want?”
“The same thing he always wanted.”
“The money?”
“No.”
That surprised me.
“What then?”
“The evidence Claire stole.”
Mom’s face drained.
Hale looked at her.
Ryan laughed softly.
“There it is. She never told you that part, did she?”
I looked at Mom.
“What evidence?”
She said nothing.
“Mom.”
Her hands trembled.
“A ledger.”
“Where is it?”
She looked toward the storage boxes.
“Not here.”
Ryan answered for her.
“It’s inside Sarah’s house.”
My skin prickled.
“What?”
“Your mother hid it there before she disappeared.”
I looked at Mom.
She nodded.
“Where?”
Ryan said, “That’s the twelve-million-dollar question.”
Then I remembered something Dad had once told me.
When he helped me renovate the house before I moved in, he insisted we keep one original part of the property untouched.
The fireplace.
I had always thought it was sentimental.
Now I knew better.
“The fireplace.”
Mom gasped.
Ryan went quiet.
I had guessed correctly.
Hale immediately started issuing orders.
Then Ryan spoke again.
“Too late.”
“What?”
“Victor is already there.”
My heart dropped.
At my house.
Hale shouted instructions into his radio.
We raced back toward the neighborhood.
Three police cruisers arrived ahead of us.
The front door was open.
Inside, the kitchen still bore traces of the assault.
My broken phone.
The mark on the wall.
The papers gone.
But Victor wasn’t there.
The fireplace had been destroyed.
Bricks covered the living-room floor.
A hole had been smashed into the wall.
Mom ran toward it.
“No.”
She reached inside.
Nothing.
“The ledger is gone.”
Hale examined the room.
“Victor took it.”
I shook my head.
“No.”
Everyone looked at me.
I pointed at the dust.
There were two clean rectangular spaces on the floor.
One where the hidden compartment had been opened.
Another near the couch.
“What?”
I looked at Mom.
“Somebody was here before Victor.”
Hale studied the marks.
Then he saw something near the baseboard.
A drop of blood.
Not much.
Beside it lay a familiar gold cuff link.
I picked it up.
Dad’s.
My stomach turned.
“Dad was here.”
A noise came from upstairs.
Hale drew his weapon.
“Stay here.”
He moved toward the stairs with another officer.
Mom held my arm.
Seconds later, Hale shouted.
“Clear!”
Then another voice.
“We’ve got someone!”
I pulled away and ran upstairs.
Dad was lying on the floor of my bedroom.
His wrists were tied.
Blood ran from a cut above his eyebrow.
“Dad!”
I dropped beside him.
His eyes opened weakly.
“Sarah.”
“Who did this?”
He swallowed.
“Victor.”
“Where did he go?”
Dad gripped my wrist.
“He didn’t get the ledger.”
I stared at him.
“Then who did?”
Dad looked toward the doorway.
My mother stood there.
May you like
His eyes hardened.
“Claire did.”
