Chapter 7
I did not drive to the airfield alone.
I wanted to.
Every instinct in my body screamed to get to Ethan.
But Noah needed one parent who still made rational decisions.
I left him with Claire and Margaret at the hotel.
Then I rode with police.
Daniel came separately with federal agents he had already been working with.
For the first time, I understood how deep the investigation really was.
Victor Hale was not simply a dangerous businessman.
He was the target of a federal financial crime investigation involving fraud, extortion, identity theft, money laundering, and racketeering.
And somehow my family had been dragged through the center of it.
The private airfield sat outside Nashville behind a chain-link gate and a row of dark warehouses.
Police blocked the road half a mile away.
I was told to remain in the command vehicle.
I hated every second.
“Can you locate Diane’s phone?” I asked.
An investigator shook his head.
“Powered off.”
“Ethan’s?”
“His phone was left in the car.”
“What about Victor?”
“Unknown.”
Minutes felt like hours.
Then a radio crackled.
Vehicle approaching from east access road.
Black SUV.
My pulse spiked.
Officers moved into position.
The SUV stopped.
Doors opened.
Agents surrounded it.
I could barely see from where I sat.
Then someone opened the rear passenger door.
A woman stepped out.
Diane.
I jumped from the command vehicle.
An officer blocked me.
“Ma’am, stay here.”
“Where’s Ethan?”
Diane turned at the sound of my voice.
Even from a distance, I saw blood on her blouse.
Not much.
Enough.
“Where is he?” I shouted.
She pointed inside the SUV.
Paramedics rushed over.
A stretcher appeared.
Then I saw Ethan.
His eyes were closed.
There was a bandage around his head.
I ran before anyone could stop me.
“Ethan!”
His eyes opened slightly.
“Lauren?”
“I’m here.”
He tried to sit up.
Paramedics stopped him.
“Noah?”
“He’s safe.”
His eyes closed again.
I grabbed his hand.
“What happened?”
“Victor.”
“Did he hurt you?”
“He wanted the records.”
“Did you give them to him?”
Ethan gave the faintest smile.
“No.”
Then he lost consciousness again.
The paramedic pushed me back.
“We need room.”
They loaded him into the ambulance.
I climbed in.
Diane called my name.
I turned.
Police had not handcuffed her yet.
But two officers stood beside her.
“Lauren.”
I stared at her.
“I’m sorry.”
“Save it.”
“I need to tell you something before they take me.”
“You can tell the police.”
“It’s about your father.”
I stopped.
Diane looked at the officers.
“Please.”
One nodded.
“One minute.”
I stepped closer but kept distance between us.
Diane looked exhausted.
“He knew about me.”
“What?”
“Robert knew I was talking to Victor.”
“I read the letter.”
“No. Not all of it.”
My stomach tightened.
“What does that mean?”
“Robert asked me to keep talking to him.”
I stared.
“You’re lying.”
“At first, I betrayed Robert. I did.”
“Why?”
“Thomas left me drowning in debt. Victor said he would take our house, Ethan’s college savings, everything. I gave him information.”
“You watched me for him.”
“Yes.”
“You reported on my relationship.”
“Yes.”
My anger surged.
“Then don’t stand there pretending—”
“I’m not pretending.”
Her voice broke.
“I did terrible things because I was afraid.”
“You hurt Noah because you were afraid.”
“I know.”
“And you will answer for that.”
“Yes.”
The word stopped me.
No excuse.
No argument.
Just yes.
Diane wiped her face.
“Robert discovered what I was doing around the time you and Ethan became serious.”
“What did he do?”
“He offered me a choice. Keep feeding Victor real information and go to prison when he exposed me, or help him figure out what Victor wanted.”
“Dad recruited you?”
“Yes.”
“For how long?”
“Years.”
I shook my head.
“No.”
“Robert believed Victor had people inside his company.”
“Did he?”
“Yes.”
“Who?”
“We never proved everyone.”
“Was Dad’s death connected?”
Diane looked away.
“Answer me.”
“I don’t know.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“I was in Florida when he died. Robert had sent me there to meet one of Victor’s intermediaries.”
“Did Victor know Dad had medication in his system?”
Her face changed.
“What medication?”
I watched her carefully.
If she was acting, she was excellent.
“A sedative.”
She looked genuinely shocked.
“No.”
The ambulance driver called for me.
“We have to go.”
Diane grabbed my sleeve.
I ripped free.
“There’s more.”
“What?”
“Thomas didn’t die of a heart attack either.”
Everything stopped.
“What did you say?”
“My husband was terrified of Victor. Before he died, he told me he had kept copies of records.”
“Where?”
“I never found them.”
“Did Ethan?”
“Not until tonight.”
My heart hammered.
“The safe.”
She nodded.
“What was inside?”
“A key.”
“To what?”
“A storage box.”
“Where?”
“Your father’s old company headquarters.”
I stared at her.
“Why would Thomas hide something there?”
“Because Robert helped him.”
Dad and Thomas.
Enemies?
Partners?
Both?
Diane continued.
“Ethan found the key. Victor arrived before we could leave.”
“What happened?”
“He demanded it.”
“Did Ethan give it to him?”
“No.”
“Where is it?”
Diane glanced toward the ambulance.
“Ethan swallowed it.”
Despite everything, I stared.
“What?”
“It was tiny. A safe-deposit-style key. When Victor’s men searched him, they didn’t find it.”
My husband had swallowed a key to keep Victor from taking it.
That was the most Ethan thing and the stupidest thing I had ever heard.
Diane almost laughed through her tears.
“He told Victor he threw it out the window.”
“Did Victor believe him?”
“No.”
“Is that why Ethan is hurt?”
She nodded.
My anger sharpened.
Not only at Victor.
At Ethan too.
He had known danger was closing around our family and still believed he could solve it alone.
I climbed into the ambulance.
At the hospital, doctors diagnosed Ethan with a concussion, two broken ribs, and a badly bruised shoulder.
Nothing life-threatening.
I sat beside his bed at four in the morning.
When he woke, he looked at me.
“You stayed.”
“Don’t make that romantic.”
He winced.
“Fair.”
“You swallowed a key?”
He closed his eyes.
“Mom told you.”
“Yes.”
“Did they arrest her?”
“They’re questioning her.”
“She saved me.”
“She also abused our son.”
“I know.”
I stood.
“Do not ask me to forgive her.”
“I won’t.”
“Do not minimize what she did.”
“I won’t.”
“And do not ever say you were protecting me again.”
He stared at me.
“I thought I was.”
“You were protecting the life you wanted to keep.”
He did not argue.
Good.
After a moment, he whispered,
“I’m sorry.”
I looked out the window.
Morning light was beginning to touch the skyline.
“I don’t know what happens to us.”
“I know.”
“I don’t know if I can ever trust you again.”
“I know.”
“I may divorce you.”
His eyes filled.
“I know.”
“But right now, I need the truth.”
He nodded.
“All of it.”
“Why didn’t you cooperate with Daniel and the federal investigators?”
“Because Victor threatened Noah.”
My blood ran cold.
“What?”
“He sent me photographs.”
“Of Noah?”
“At school. Soccer practice. With you at the grocery store.”
My stomach twisted.
“When?”
“Five months ago.”
“And you didn’t tell me?”
“I panicked.”
“Stop using fear as an excuse.”
“I’m not.”
His voice cracked.
“I made the wrong choice.”
“Yes.”
“I thought if I could collect evidence quietly, I could give it to investigators all at once and move you and Noah somewhere safe.”
“You made decisions for me.”
“Yes.”
“You took away my ability to protect my own child.”
“Yes.”
I stared at him.
At least he had stopped fighting reality.
“Why did you create Blue Quarry?”
“Victor made me.”
“How?”
“He knew about the forged power of attorney. He knew about my original fraud.”
“So he blackmailed you.”
“Yes.”
“You still had choices.”
“I know.”
The answer came immediately.
That mattered.
Not enough.
But it mattered.
“What was in your father’s safe besides the key?”
“A note.”
“What did it say?”
Ethan closed his eyes.
“Robert knows.”
I froze.
“My father knew what?”
“That’s all it said.”
Robert knows.
Dad knew Thomas had hidden evidence.
Maybe the storage box contained the records Dad had tried to preserve.
“Where exactly is the box?”
“I don’t know.”
“You said headquarters.”
“The key has a number stamped on it. C-417.”
Dad’s old headquarters had a secure basement archive.
After the company moved to a new building, we kept the original property as document storage.
C-417 could be a locker.
Or a box.
“Victor knows about headquarters?”
“He may.”
My phone rang.
Margaret.
I answered.
“We have a problem,” she said.
“What?”
“Someone broke into the old Carter Development headquarters twenty minutes ago.”
My stomach dropped.
“Was anything taken?”
“We don’t know.”
“Victor?”
“Possibly.”
“Where is he?”
“That’s the other problem.”
“What?”
“He never reached the airfield.”
I stared at Ethan.
“Then who was in the black SUV?”
“Diane and Ethan.”
“No Victor?”
“No.”
I remembered the phone call.
Victor’s voice at Diane’s house.
The plan to flee.
All of it.
A distraction.
Dad’s words came back again.
If someone desperately wants you to look in one direction, turn around.
Victor had wanted everyone watching the airport.
While someone went to Dad’s building.
“Margaret.”
“Yes?”
“I’m coming.”
Ethan tried to sit up.
“So am I.”
“You can barely breathe.”
“That key is inside me.”
Despite everything, I almost laughed.
“You are not using that sentence to leave a hospital.”
His expression became serious.
“Lauren.”
“What?”
“There’s something else about C-417.”
“What?”
“My father used that number in passwords.”
“Why?”
“I never knew.”
He reached for my hand.
I nearly pulled away.
Then he whispered,
“Until last night.”
“What happened last night?”
“Mom showed me an old photograph from the year I was born.”
I waited.
He swallowed.
“C-417 wasn’t originally a storage number.”
“What was it?”
“It was a hospital room.”
I frowned.
“Whose?”
His eyes met mine.
“Mine.”
I stared at him.
Ethan continued.
“My father wrote one more sentence beneath the note.”
“What sentence?”
May you like
He took a breath.
“Robert knows who you really are.”
