Chapter 6
Chaos swallowed the room.
Ryan shouted into the phone.
“Where is Grace now?”
Natalie was crying so hard we could barely understand her.
“The school released her.”
“To who?”
“A man.”
“What man?”
“I don’t know!”
Ryan grabbed his car keys.
I stopped him.
“Call police.”
“I’m getting my daughter.”
“You don’t know where she is.”
“I know where to start.”
“Ryan.”
He turned.
“Dad’s old assistant.”
Michael frowned.
“Who?”
“Dennis Cole.”
I recognized the name.
Dennis had worked with Robert for nearly fifteen years.
Operations manager.
Driver when Robert traveled.
The person Robert called when he needed something handled quietly.
He had left the company shortly after Robert died.
“Why Dennis?”
Ryan’s breathing was hard.
“Because Dad used him during the custody fight with Natalie.”
My stomach tightened.
“For what?”
“Following her.”
Michael stared.
“You knew that?”
“Yes.”
“And you still let Dad do it?”
“I told you I was stupid!”
Ryan ran for the door.
Michael followed.
“So am I.”
Ryan turned.
“What?”
“If somebody forged my name to take Grace, I’m coming.”
For one second, the brothers looked like they might fight again.
Then Ryan nodded.
I grabbed my purse.
Michael blocked me.
“Mom, stay here.”
I stared at him.
“Don’t ever give me that order again.”
He stopped.
I turned toward Rebecca.
“You and Eli stay.”
She shook her head.
“No.”
“This has nothing to do with you.”
She laughed bitterly.
“Everything today has something to do with me.”
Charles called police while we drove.
Natalie gave them the school information.
Michael called his attorney.
Ryan called Dennis repeatedly.
No answer.
Then Michael asked the obvious question.
“Why would anyone take Grace?”
Ryan stared at the road.
“I don’t know.”
“You said Dad wanted custody years ago.”
“Yes.”
“But Dad is dead.”
“I noticed.”
“So why now?”
Ryan gripped the wheel.
Rebecca sat beside me in the back.
She leaned forward.
“Was Grace named in Robert’s new trust?”
“Yes,” Charles had said.
Equal beneficiary.
Rebecca’s expression changed.
“What?”
I asked.
“If something happens to Grace, what happens to her share?”
Nobody answered.
Michael slowly turned in the passenger seat.
“That’s ugly.”
Ryan’s voice hardened.
“Say it.”
“If she’s removed as a beneficiary somehow…”
“She’s seven.”
“I know.”
“Say what you mean.”
Michael looked at him.
“Someone may benefit financially if she is gone.”
I felt sick.
Rebecca shook her head.
“No.”
Ryan’s breathing changed.
“Who?”
Michael called Charles.
He answered immediately.
“What happens to Grace’s trust share if she dies?”
I flinched at the words.
Charles paused.
“Why are you asking?”
“Answer.”
“Her share would be redistributed among Robert’s remaining grandchildren.”
Michael looked back at Rebecca.
Eli.
Michael’s two children.
Three beneficiaries.
That meant removing Grace increased everyone else’s shares.
But none of us believed Michael’s children were involved.
“They’re minors,” Jennifer said from her car behind us on speaker.
Rebecca looked at Michael.
“Who controls your children’s trusts?”
Michael went still.
“Jennifer and me.”
I closed my eyes.
This was becoming unbearable.
Ryan looked at him.
“If Grace disappears, you benefit.”
Michael slammed his hand against the dashboard.
“I did not take your daughter!”
“I know.”
The answer surprised all of us.
Ryan looked at him.
Michael stared.
Ryan continued.
“You’re an arrogant ass.”
“Thank you.”
“But you wouldn’t take Grace.”
Something changed between them.
Not forgiveness.
Not trust.
But a line.
There were things they still knew about each other.
Rebecca asked, “What about Ryan?”
He frowned.
“What about me?”
“If Grace’s money is controlled by a guardian while she’s a minor, who would control it?”
Michael answered.
“Her parent or appointed trustee.”
Ryan stared at him.
“So me.”
“Yes.”
Rebecca shook her head.
“Then financially, you benefit from her staying alive.”
Ryan gave a humorless laugh.
“Great. I’m less suspicious because I need my kid alive to access her money.”
I snapped.
“Stop talking about her like money.”
Silence.
Grace was a child.
My granddaughter.
Not a line in Robert’s trust.
We reached Dennis Cole’s last known address.
A small house in Arlington.
Police were already there.
No Dennis.
Neighbors hadn’t seen him in weeks.
Then Natalie called.
She was driving toward us.
“I remembered something.”
“What?”
“The man at the school gave a phone number.”
“Do you have it?”
“Yes.”
Police traced it.
Prepaid.
Activated that morning.
Then an officer came from Dennis’s garage carrying a cardboard box.
Inside were old Harrison Development files.
Robert’s name appeared repeatedly.
So did Rebecca’s.
So did Natalie’s.
Michael looked at me.
“Dad kept files on everyone.”
Rebecca opened one.
Photographs of her.
Eli.
Her mother.
Years of surveillance.
She went pale.
“He was watching us.”
Ryan grabbed Natalie’s folder.
Photographs.
Apartment addresses.
Workplaces.
Grace at a playground.
I felt physically ill.
“Why?”
Nobody knew.
Then Michael found one marked M.H.
His own initials.
He opened it.
Bank statements.
Photographs of Jennifer entering a hotel.
Michael froze.
Jennifer stood behind him.
Her face changed.
“What is that?”
Michael lifted a picture.
“You tell me.”
Jennifer stared at it.
“That was work.”
“With who?”
“My client.”
Ryan looked away.
Nobody wanted another marriage collapsing.
Then Michael pulled out a handwritten note.
Jennifer read it over his shoulder.
Her face hardened.
“Your father had me followed too.”
Michael stared at the image.
“When?”
“Two years ago.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I didn’t know!”
The officer interrupted.
“We found something else.”
A laptop.
Old.
Password protected.
Rebecca looked at the sticker on it.
“L.T.”
Linda Turner.
Her mother.
Dennis had somehow obtained Linda’s laptop.
Rebecca’s face turned angry.
“That belongs to me.”
Police documented it before allowing her to look at the exterior.
“Why would Dennis have my mother’s computer?”
Then her expression changed.
“The storage unit.”
“What?”
“He had access.”
“How?”
“Someone entered it two weeks ago.”
I stared at her.
“You knew?”
“I thought it was management.”
“The box?”
She looked horrified.
“What if Eli found the box only because someone else had already searched the unit?”
That meant Dennis may have been looking for the records before Rebecca ever brought them to us.
But why?
Robert was dead.
Then Ryan’s phone buzzed.
A text.
Unknown number.
A photograph.
Grace.
Sitting on a couch.
Alive.
Crying.
Ryan’s knees almost gave out.
“Baby.”
Under the photo was a message.
Bring Robert’s ledger.
Rebecca went still.
“They want the ledger.”
I stared at her.
“Not Grace’s trust.”
“No.”
Michael looked at me.
“This isn’t kidnapping over inheritance.”
Ryan’s face tightened.
“It’s about whatever Dad recorded in that ledger.”
Another message arrived.
Two hours.
No police.
Bring Rebecca.
Rebecca laughed coldly.
“Of course.”
Eli grabbed her arm.
“No.”
She looked at him.
“I’m not leaving you.”
The message included an address.
An abandoned Harrison Development property south of Dallas.
Ryan wanted to leave immediately.
Police stopped him.
A detective named Carla Mendes took control.
“You will not walk into a hostage situation without a plan.”
“That’s my daughter.”
“And we want her alive.”
Ryan looked ready to explode.
Rebecca touched his arm.
He looked at her.
She had spent less than an hour in the same room with him.
Now she said quietly, “Don’t let panic make you easy to control.”
Something in her tone calmed him.
Maybe because she knew what it felt like to have Robert control a life from the shadows.
Police copied the ledger.
They prepared a decoy bag.
Rebecca insisted on going.
So did Ryan.
Detective Mendes argued.
Rebecca refused.
“They asked for me.”
“Which makes you a target.”
“Which makes me useful.”
Eli started crying.
She knelt.
“I’m coming back.”
“What if you don’t?”
Rebecca’s face broke.
I crouched beside them.
“You stay with me.”
He looked at me.
He barely knew me.
Technically, I was nothing to him by blood.
His grandfather’s wife.
The woman his family had been taught was part of the reason he was hidden.
Still, he nodded.
“I’ll keep him safe,” I told Rebecca.
She looked at me for several seconds.
Then whispered, “Thank you.”
Police placed tracking devices on Ryan and Rebecca.
They approached the property while officers positioned nearby.
We waited at a mobile command vehicle several blocks away.
Michael paced beside me.
Jennifer stood near the window.
Eli held my hand.
Forty minutes passed.
Then Detective Mendes’ radio crackled.
Contact.
They had entered the building.
A man was inside.
Dennis.
Ryan’s voice came through the microphone.
“Where is Grace?”
Dennis answered.
“Ledger.”
Rebecca said, “You get nothing until we see her.”
A child cried in the background.
Ryan shouted.
“Grace!”
“Daddy!”
His face wasn’t visible to us, but his voice broke.
“I’m here, baby.”
Dennis shouted.
“Put the bag down.”
Rebecca asked, “Why do you want the ledger?”
“Because it doesn’t belong to you.”
“It belonged to my mother.”
“No.”
Silence.
“Then whose?”
Dennis laughed.
“Robert’s.”
Rebecca replied.
“Robert stole half of what was in it.”
“Robert didn’t steal anything.”
That surprised me.
Michael looked at the monitor.
Dennis continued.
“He covered for Linda.”
Rebecca went still.
“What?”
“Your mother was the one moving money.”
I stared at Eli.
Rebecca’s voice sharpened.
“You’re lying.”
“Read the last pages.”
Rebecca had never reached them.
Neither had we.
Dennis continued.
“Linda wasn’t some helpless secretary.”
“What are you talking about?”
“She owned twenty percent of Harrison Development.”
Michael turned toward me.
I shook my head.
I had never heard that.
Dennis continued.
“Quiet ownership. Robert hid it from Evelyn.”
My stomach twisted.
“After Linda left, Robert kept paying her share through side accounts.”
Rebecca sounded stunned.
“Then why was she poor?”
“Because she kept giving the money back.”
“Why?”
“For you.”
I felt dread.
Dennis laughed.
“Ask your mother what she planned to do with the company.”
Rebecca whispered, “She’s dead.”
“Exactly.”
There was movement over the microphone.
Ryan shouted.
“Grace!”
Then a crash.
Police yelled.
The transmission filled with noise.
Eli squeezed my hand.
“Mom?”
I pulled him close.
Seconds felt like minutes.
Then Detective Mendes’ voice came over the radio.
“Child secure.”
Ryan had Grace.
I closed my eyes.
Relief crashed through me.
“Suspect in custody.”
Michael exhaled.
Jennifer started crying.
Eli whispered, “Is Rebecca okay?”
The radio crackled again.
“Second adult located.”
Second adult?
Michael stared at me.
“Who?”
Then an officer said:
“We have a female in the back room.”
I felt cold.
Dennis hadn’t been alone.
Police brought the woman outside.
When the camera image appeared, I recognized her.
So did Michael.
So did Ryan.
Jennifer whispered, “No.”
The woman was Natalie.
Grace’s own mother.
Ryan stared at the monitor.
He looked as if someone had punched him.
Natalie wasn’t a hostage.
She wasn’t tied up.
She wasn’t injured.
She was standing beside Dennis in handcuffs.
And when Ryan demanded an explanation, she looked at him and said:
“I was never trying to take Grace from you.”
Ryan stepped toward her.
“Then why?”
May you like
Natalie looked directly at Rebecca.
“Because Robert stole something from Grace before she was even born.”
