Chapter 5
Nobody moved.
Not even Agent Hale.
Rebecca stared through the glass.
Her chest rose and fell.
She knew she had said too much.
Agent Hale opened the conference-room door.
“Bring her in.”
Charles shouted from the other office.
“Absolutely not!”
Hale turned.
“Nobody asked you.”
Rebecca was escorted into the room.
Her eyes went straight to the silver key.
“Give me that.”
I closed my fist around it.
“No.”
“Ethan, please.”
“Why?”
Her voice dropped.
“Because Michael wanted this.”
“Wanted what?”
“All of us fighting.”
I looked at the photograph.
Dad.
Samuel.
David.
They looked happy.
“When was this taken?”
Rebecca glanced down.
“Years ago.”
“Before Dad died?”
“Yes.”
“You said he hated Uncle David.”
Her face tightened.
“He did.”
“They don’t look like they hate each other.”
“You can smile in a photograph.”
“So you lied.”
“I simplified.”
Agent Hale pulled out a chair.
“Sit.”
Rebecca glared at him.
He didn’t blink.
She sat.
Hale pointed to the letter.
“You just made a statement suggesting Michael Carter was murdered.”
Rebecca’s face went pale.
“I was upset.”
“Was he?”
“I don’t know.”
“Why did you say it?”
“Because Michael spent the last two years of his life convinced someone was trying to kill him.”
My chest tightened.
“He never told me.”
Rebecca looked at me.
“You were a child.”
“I was his son.”
“That’s why he didn’t tell you.”
That answer hurt because it sounded possible.
Agent Hale asked, “Who did Michael fear?”
Rebecca rubbed her hands together.
“Everyone.”
“Specific names.”
“Business partners. Investors. David. Charles.”
Charles shouted from the hall.
Rebecca smiled bitterly.
“And me.”
I stared at her.
“Why you?”
“Because he had accused me of stealing.”
“Were you?”
She looked at the table.
“How much?” Hale asked.
Rebecca whispered, “Not forty-six million.”
“That wasn’t the question.”
She closed her eyes.
“Two hundred thousand.”
My stomach turned.
“When?”
“Years before Michael died.”
“From him?”
“From the company.”
“Why?”
She suddenly looked angry.
“Because I deserved it.”
There it was again.
That word.
Deserved.
“He paid David millions to walk away from the business. He gave Samuel equity. He bought houses for employees. But when I asked for help, he treated me like a criminal.”
“You stole two hundred thousand dollars,” I said.
“I borrowed it.”
“Did you ask?”
Silence.
“That’s stealing.”
She looked at me with tears in her eyes.
“You sound exactly like him.”
“Good.”
The word came out before I could stop it.
Rebecca flinched.
Part of me felt guilty.
Another part didn’t.
Hale said, “Why was Michael’s death ruled accidental?”
“Because his car went through a guardrail.”
“Was there an investigation?”
“Yes.”
“Any mechanical inspection?”
Rebecca hesitated.
“I assume.”
“You assume?”
“I wasn’t handling it.”
“Who was?”
She looked toward Charles.
Agent Hale noticed.
“So Mr. Vance handled matters after the death?”
“Yes.”
Charles called through the glass, “I was estate counsel. That is not suspicious.”
Hale ignored him.
He turned to Daniel.
“Where is Box 317?”
Daniel shook his head.
“Not here.”
“How do you know?”
“Our safe-deposit boxes use four-digit identifiers.”
The forensic banking specialist was working at a laptop.
She looked up.
“There’s no Box 317 tied to this branch.”
I looked at the key.
It was small.
Older than the bank card.
On one side were engraved letters.
SR.
“Samuel Reed,” I said.
Hale nodded.
“Probably.”
Rebecca whispered, “He won’t find him.”
I looked at her.
“You said you didn’t know where Samuel was.”
“I don’t.”
“But you know something.”
She stared at the key.
“Samuel disappeared because he was scared.”
“Of who?”
“Your father.”
That made no sense.
“Dad trusted him.”
“At the end, your father didn’t trust anyone.”
“You keep changing the story.”
“Because you keep asking questions with complicated answers!”
“No. You keep lying until the next lie stops working.”
Her eyes filled again.
“I raised you.”
“You got paid to raise me.”
“That money wasn’t enough.”
“How much?”
She looked away.
“How much did Dad leave for me every month?”
Daniel answered quietly.
“We found the maintenance record.”
Rebecca closed her eyes.
I turned to him.
“How much?”
“Twenty-five thousand dollars.”
For a second, I thought I had heard wrong.
“Every month?”
“Yes.”
I stared at Rebecca.
My voice barely worked.
“For four years?”
She whispered, “Not all of it came to me.”
“How much?”
“Ethan.”
“HOW MUCH?”
The shout echoed through the room.
Agent Hale didn’t stop me.
Rebecca started crying.
“Seventeen thousand five hundred.”
Every month.
For forty-eight months.
More than eight hundred thousand dollars.
I remembered eating cereal with water because there was no milk.
I remembered hiding in the school bathroom during lunch because I didn’t have money in my account.
I remembered Rebecca saying electricity had gotten too expensive and shutting off the heat in my bedroom.
“You had almost eighteen thousand dollars every month.”
“I had expenses.”
“For me?”
“For the house.”
“For Troy’s motorcycle?”
Her head jerked up.
I had guessed.
The look on her face told me I was right.
“For the trips?”
“Stop.”
“The new kitchen?”
“Stop.”
“The bracelet you said Troy bought you?”
“Ethan.”
“Was any of it yours?”
She stood.
Hale said, “Sit down.”
She ignored him.
“I gave up my life for you!”
I stood too.
“No, you didn’t!”
“I was thirty-six when Michael died! I had plans!”
“So did I!”
My voice broke.
“I had a dad!”
She froze.
The room went silent.
I could feel tears burning now.
“I didn’t ask to live with you.”
Rebecca’s mouth trembled.
“I know.”
“I didn’t ask Dad to die.”
“I know.”
“I didn’t ask you to love me.”
That destroyed whatever anger was holding her together.
She covered her face and sobbed.
“I did love you.”
I shook my head.
“Not enough.”
Her crying became louder.
For a moment I saw the aunt from before Dad died.
The woman who used to bring birthday balloons.
Who danced badly in our kitchen.
Who took me to the zoo and bought me a stuffed lion Dad said was too expensive.
Maybe she had loved me once.
Maybe greed didn’t erase love.
Maybe it just made people choose themselves over it.
That almost hurt more.
Agent Hale let the silence sit.
Then the forensic specialist turned her laptop around.
“Agent Hale.”
He walked over.
She pointed at the screen.
“We found something.”
“What?”
“The forty-eight-million-dollar account isn’t the main trust.”
Daniel looked shocked.
“I suspected that.”
She nodded.
“It’s a liquidity reserve. Michael Carter structured multiple entities.”
“How many?”
“At least twelve.”
I stared.
“What does that mean?”
She looked at me.
“It means the money you saw today is only one part of what your father left.”
“How much total?”
“We don’t know yet.”
Rebecca whispered, “Hundreds of millions.”
The specialist looked at her.
“Possibly.”
I didn’t feel excited.
I felt tired.
Money had already changed everyone around me in less than two hours.
I couldn’t imagine what more would do.
Hale picked up the silver key.
“With your permission, we need to identify the box.”
“Okay.”
Rebecca shook her head.
“You shouldn’t.”
I looked at her.
“Why?”
“Because your father kept evidence.”
“Evidence of what?”
She stared at Charles through the glass.
His face was furious.
Then she whispered, “Everything.”
Charles began pounding on the glass.
“Rebecca! Stop talking!”
She turned toward him.
Something finally broke.
“You left me to take the fall!”
His expression changed.
“You initiated the transfer.”
“You designed it!”
“Do not say another word.”
“You told me Michael’s safeguards were expired!”
Charles looked toward Agent Hale.
Then he shut his mouth.
Rebecca laughed bitterly.
“You see? He doesn’t care about me either.”
I almost said welcome to the club.
But she looked so destroyed that I didn’t.
Hale asked, “What evidence did Michael keep?”
Rebecca lowered her voice.
“Recordings.”
Charles slammed both palms against the glass.
“REBECCA!”
“Financial records.”
“STOP!”
“Copies of agreements.”
Charles turned toward the officer guarding him.
“I am terminating this interview. My client invokes counsel.”
Rebecca looked at him.
“You are my counsel.”
His face hardened.
“Not anymore.”
Her expression went blank.
That was probably the moment she understood.
Charles had used her.
Maybe she had used him too.
But now the building was burning, and he was already trying to escape first.
Hale sat again.
“Where would Michael keep recordings?”
Rebecca looked at the key.
“I never knew.”
“Then how do you know they existed?”
“Because once, before he died, he called me into his office.”
I held my breath.
“He put a recorder on the desk and told me if anything happened to him, the truth would survive him.”
“What truth?”
Rebecca shook her head.
“He wouldn’t say.”
“What did you do?”
“I laughed at him.”
Her voice broke.
“I told him he was paranoid.”
The room became quiet.
“Two weeks later, he was dead.”
I looked at the photograph again.
“Did Dad think you would hurt him?”
Rebecca met my eyes.
“I don’t know.”
That was the first time I believed her.
Agent Hale picked up the key carefully.
“We need Samuel Reed.”
The forensic specialist spoke.
“I ran the name through public corporate filings.”
“And?”
“Samuel Reed didn’t disappear completely.”
She turned the laptop.
“There’s an S. J. Reed listed as registered agent for a storage property in Wisconsin.”
Hale leaned closer.
“Where?”
“Lake Geneva.”
My father used to take me there.
Once a summer.
We stayed in the same cheap cabin.
He taught me to skip rocks.
I had forgotten something until that moment.
Every trip, Dad disappeared for one hour on the second morning.
He said he was getting coffee.
He always came back with coffee.
But it never took an hour.
I looked at the key.
“Box 317 is there.”
Everyone turned toward me.
Hale frowned.
“How do you know?”
“I don’t.”
“But?”
“Dad took me to Lake Geneva every summer.”
Rebecca stared at me.
“He did?”
“Yes.”
Her face changed.
She had not known.
Hale said, “Where did you stay?”
“Pine Shore Cabins.”
The specialist typed quickly.
Then stopped.
“What?”
She looked at the screen.
“There’s a private storage facility less than two miles away.”
“Name?” Hale asked.
“Reed Secure Storage.”
My heart started pounding.
Hale reached for his phone.
Rebecca suddenly stood.
“No.”
Everyone looked at her.
She was terrified again.
“Do not go there tonight.”
Hale narrowed his eyes.
“Why?”
Rebecca stared at me.
“Because Charles isn’t the person you should be afraid of.”
Charles shouted from behind the glass.
“Shut up!”
Rebecca ignored him.
She pointed at the photograph.
“Find David first.”
“Why?” I asked.
Her eyes filled with fear.
“Because your uncle has spent four years waiting for you to turn thirteen.”
I felt cold.
“What does he want?”
Rebecca whispered, “The same thing everyone wants.”
I looked at the forty-eight-million-dollar balance still visible on a nearby monitor.
“Money?”
She shook her head.
“No.”
May you like
Her eyes dropped to the key in Agent Hale’s hand.
“He wants whatever your father locked inside Box 317.”
