Chapter 8
I felt a chill move through me.
“What does that mean?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did she say where she was going?”
“No.”
“Is Daniel still at the station?”
“Yes.”
“Are police looking for her?”
“Yes.”
“Then stay there.”
Ethan went quiet.
“What?”
“Stay with police.”
“You’re worried about me?”
I closed my eyes.
“Do not turn this into something it isn’t.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I don’t want Sophie’s father disappearing.”
That was the truth.
Whatever happened between Ethan and me, Sophie deserved a father who stayed alive long enough to become better.
If he chose to.
“I understand.”
“Do you?”
“Yes.”
I ended the call.
Laura looked at me.
“You still care about him.”
“He’s my daughter’s father.”
“That wasn’t what I said.”
I stared at Sophie through the NICU window.
“I don’t know what I feel.”
“That’s allowed.”
“I hate what he did.”
“Yes.”
“I still recognize his voice before anyone else’s.”
“Yes.”
“I still know he takes coffee without sugar.”
Laura almost smiled.
“Divorce does not erase memory.”
I looked at her.
“Does it get easier?”
“Yes.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I divorced someone I loved.”
That surprised me.
She rarely talked about herself.
“Did he cheat?”
“No.”
“Lie?”
“Yes.”
“Money?”
“Yes.”
I laughed quietly.
“Apparently money ruins everyone.”
“No.”
Laura shook her head.
“Money reveals what people are willing to protect.”
I thought about Ethan.
Rachel.
His mother.
Daniel.
Maybe even his father.
“What am I protecting?”
“Sophie.”
“Yes.”
“And yourself, hopefully.”
I looked away.
That part was harder.
The next several hours brought more information.
Daniel agreed to cooperate.
According to him, Ethan’s father, Robert, had discovered that his wife, Margaret, had been secretly moving family trust money through shell companies.
Daniel learned because Robert contacted him.
Robert wanted help gathering evidence.
But before he could go to authorities, he died.
Daniel believed Margaret had something to do with it.
He could never prove it.
Margaret inherited the insurance payout.
Then she took control of several family accounts.
Daniel filed a civil claim.
He lost.
Ethan believed his mother.
The brothers stopped speaking.
For sixteen years, the story stayed buried.
Until money started disappearing from Ethan’s company.
I listened as Detective Hale explained everything.
“Why Ethan’s company?” I asked.
“That is the question.”
“Could Margaret have access?”
“Potentially.”
“How?”
“Ethan made her an authorized financial consultant when he started the company.”
I turned toward Ethan.
He had joined the meeting by then.
His face filled with shame.
“You gave your mother access?”
“Years ago.”
“Did you ever remove it?”
“I thought I did.”
“You thought?”
“My accountant changed the permissions.”
Detective Hale corrected him.
“Some were changed. Some were not.”
I laughed bitterly.
“So she could move money.”
“Yes.”
“Why Hart Financial?”
Daniel spoke for the first time.
He was sitting across the table.
He looked older than Ethan.
Same eyes.
Different expression.
Harder.
More tired.
“Because she wanted Ethan to think it was me.”
I looked at him.
“Why?”
“So if he ever found the transfers, he would come after me instead of her.”
Ethan stared at his brother.
“I almost did.”
Daniel laughed.
“You spent sixteen years doing exactly what she expected.”
Ethan stiffened.
“I thought you were trying to steal from us.”
“You mean from her.”
“Our family.”
Daniel leaned forward.
“She made sure you never understood the difference.”
The brothers stared at each other.
Years of hatred sat between them.
I did not want any part of it.
“Stop.”
Both looked at me.
“This isn’t helping.”
Daniel leaned back.
“You’re right.”
Ethan looked at me with something close to gratitude.
I ignored it.
Detective Hale continued.
“We believe approximately nine hundred thousand dollars was moved from Hartwell Consulting over three years.”
My heart tightened.
“Three years?”
“Yes.”
That meant while Ethan and I were married.
While we paid our mortgage.
While I worried about daycare costs.
While Ethan told me business was tight.
Someone was quietly moving hundreds of thousands of dollars.
“Where did it go?”
“Multiple accounts.”
“Can it be recovered?”
“Some may be.”
“Was my forged signature used?”
“Yes.”
I felt sick.
“For what?”
“The five-hundred-thousand-dollar credit line appears connected.”
“How?”
“Funds from the line were used to cover company expenses after money disappeared.”
I turned to Ethan.
“So instead of telling me money was missing, someone forged my name to borrow more.”
His eyes filled.
“I didn’t do it.”
“I don’t know that.”
He nodded.
“I know.”
Daniel looked at him.
“You seriously let her think you did this?”
Ethan snapped.
“She has every reason to.”
Daniel stared at him.
Then something in his expression softened.
“Fair.”
Detective Hale’s phone rang.
He stepped outside.
When he returned, his face had changed.
“We found Margaret’s car.”
Ethan stood.
“Where?”
“Chicago.”
“Where in Chicago?”
Hale looked at me.
“Near your house.”
My entire body went cold.
“Our house?”
“Yes.”
“Is she there?”
“We don’t know.”
“I thought police secured it.”
“They did. But there is no active crime-scene restriction now.”
Ethan moved toward the door.
Hale blocked him.
“No.”
“That’s my house.”
“Officers are already going.”
“What if she’s inside?”
“They’ll handle it.”
My mind raced.
The empty blue folder.
The cash.
The false passport.
My forged signature.
“What could she want there?”
Daniel answered quietly.
“Something Dad left.”
Everyone looked at him.
“What?” Ethan asked.
Daniel sighed.
“When I talked to Robert before he died, he said he had made three copies of the financial evidence.”
“One was in the wall,” Hale said.
Daniel nodded.
“One he gave me.”
Ethan stared at him.
“You had a copy?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“Gone.”
“What happened?”
“My apartment was broken into after Dad died.”
“And the third?”
Daniel looked at Ethan.
“He said he would put it somewhere no one in the Hartwell family would think to search.”
My chest tightened.
“And you think that’s our house?”
“No.”
Daniel looked at me.
“I think it’s connected to your father.”
I frowned.
“My father?”
“Robert trusted him enough to hide the first box.”
“How would he hide something in a house we didn’t buy until years after he died?”
Daniel shook his head.
“Not your current house.”
“Then what?”
“Something your father gave you.”
I thought about Dad’s tools.
His truck, which we sold.
His boxes.
His watch.
Then my heart stopped.
“The desk.”
Jessica looked at me.
“What desk?”
“The one in Ethan’s office.”
Ethan frowned.
“That desk was your father’s?”
“Yes.”
I had forgotten because Ethan refinished it.
My father gave me the heavy oak desk when I graduated college.
After he died, I brought it to the house.
Ethan used it because it was too large for my small home office.
The same desk where police found cash and the false passport.
Daniel sat forward.
“Did your father build it?”
“Yes.”
My father built furniture as a hobby.
My pulse increased.
“There are hidden drawers.”
Ethan looked at me.
“What?”
“You didn’t know?”
“No.”
“There are two small compartments underneath.”
Detective Hale immediately called officers.
Then he looked at me.
“Where?”
“One underneath the center drawer.”
“And the other?”
I tried to remember.
Dad showed me once when I was seventeen.
I had hidden concert tickets there so Mom would not find them.
“Behind the left support panel.”
Hale made the call.
Ten minutes later, officers entered the house.
Margaret was not there.
But the desk had been moved.
One hidden compartment was open.
Empty.
The second remained closed.
Inside, police found an envelope.
Addressed to:
Emily Harper.
My maiden name.
I stared at Detective Hale when he told me.
“That was written before I married Ethan.”
“Yes.”
“Who wrote it?”
“We don’t know yet.”
“What’s inside?”
“We have not opened it.”
“It has my name.”
“Yes.”
“So let me open it.”
Laura looked at Hale.
He nodded.
They brought the envelope to the hospital.
It was old.
The paper had yellowed.
My name was written in handwriting I recognized immediately.
My father’s.
My hands started shaking.
I opened it.
Inside was a letter.
Em,
If you ever receive this, it means a promise I made years ago has come back into your life.
I covered my mouth.
Jessica stood beside me.
I kept reading.
A man named Robert Hartwell once trusted me with information that could hurt his family.
I agreed to protect it because I believed people might be harmed if it disappeared.
I never expected you to meet his family.
If somehow you do, remember one thing.
Do not judge the children for the sins of their parents.
But do not trust anyone who asks you to hide the truth for the sake of family.
Tears blurred the words.
That sounded exactly like Dad.
At the bottom, there was another line.
The final record is not in this desk.
It is where I taught you to measure twice.
I stared at the sentence.
Jessica whispered, “The workshop.”
Dad’s workshop.
The small detached garage behind my mother’s old house.
Mom sold the house after Dad died.
The new owners still lived there.
Detective Hale immediately contacted them.
They agreed to let police search.
I wanted to go.
Laura said no.
My doctor said absolutely not.
So I waited.
Three hours.
Then four.
Finally, Hale called.
“We found something.”
“What?”
“A cavity behind the old measuring board.”
My chest tightened.
“Documents?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“A flash drive.”
“Can you read it?”
“We’re working on it.”
“Anything else?”
Hale went silent.
“What?”
“There’s a photograph.”
“Of what?”
“Your father and Robert Hartwell.”
I started crying.
My father had carried this secret for years.
And somehow it had landed in my marriage.
“What is on the flash drive?”
“We don’t know yet.”
I looked through the NICU glass.
Sophie slept peacefully.
Then Hale said something that made my blood run cold.
“One more thing.”
“What?”
“Margaret’s fingerprints were found in your house.”
I stopped breathing.
“Recent?”
“Yes.”
“How recent?”
“Probably within the last day.”
Ethan stood.
“She was there.”
Hale nodded.
“And we found blood.”
The room went silent.
“Whose?”
“We don’t know yet.”
“Where?”
“In the office.”
Ethan’s face went white.
Then Daniel asked the question I was too afraid to ask.
“How much blood?”
May you like
Detective Hale looked at him.
“Enough that we need to find Margaret quickly.”
