Chapter 17
The boy’s name was Jacob.
Richard presented him as his biological son.
Caroline called the press conference proof that their family was united.
But Jacob’s eyes never matched her smile.
Jo enlarged the footage.
Bruises circled his wrist.
Bear wanted to locate the broadcast immediately.
The federal team traced it to a hotel in Atlanta, but the room was empty when agents arrived.
Jacob had left a message scratched beneath a table.
NOT HIS SON.
A DNA report later confirmed it.
Jacob was Caroline’s nephew.
His parents had died in a car crash when he was four.
Richard and Caroline had used him as a prop for years.
Emily watched the press conference again.
“Why claim he’s an heir?”
I understood.
Richard needed someone he could control to inherit the trust if Emily and I died.
Daniel had prepared our death certificates.
Jacob was their replacement beneficiary.
That meant he was no longer useful once the lie became public.
We had to find him first.
Sophie remembered seeing a school emblem on Jacob’s jacket.
A private academy near Knoxville.
At the school, his roommate gave us a hidden notebook.
Jacob had recorded license plates, addresses, and conversations for months.
The final page contained a drawing of an old church.
Beneath it, he had written:
IF THEY DISCOVER I KNOW ABOUT THE BOAT, THEY WILL TAKE ME HERE.
Ruth recognized the church.
It stood beside the cemetery where Richard’s supposed body was buried.
We reached it after dark.
Jacob was chained inside the bell tower.
Caroline stood behind him with a can of gasoline.
May you like
“You should have stayed dead to each other,” she told us.
Then she struck a match.
