Chapter 6
“That’s impossible.”
The words left my mouth before I could think.
Daniel had been a teenager when my father died.
Margaret checked the letter again.
“It says Daniel Carter.”
“How old was Daniel then?”
My mother answered.
“Sixteen.”
“So Grandpa thought a sixteen-year-old had something to do with Dad’s death?”
“I don’t know.”
Margaret spoke carefully.
“There may be another explanation.”
“What?”
“Maybe Henry added the name later.”
“When?”
“I can have the ink examined.”
“Do it.”
My head hurt.
My incision hurt.
My entire life hurt.
I looked through the NICU window at Grace.
For her sake, I needed facts.
Not family legends.
Not half-truths.
Facts.
Detective Ruiz arrived less than an hour later.
Margaret joined by video call.
The letter appeared on screen inside an evidence sleeve.
Most of it concerned my grandfather’s suspicions about Victor Carter.
According to Henry, Victor had been using shell companies to siphon money from several land deals.
My father discovered it.
He threatened to go to police.
Three weeks later, he died.
Then came the line about Victor.
And beneath it, in different handwriting pressure, Daniel Carter.
Ruiz asked, “Did your grandfather know Daniel?”
My mother shook her head.
“Not that I know of.”
“Could he have learned about him later?”
“He died thirteen years after Thomas.”
“So yes.”
I suddenly remembered something.
“Daniel visited Grandpa.”
Mom turned.
“What?”
“Before Grandpa died.”
“When?”
“I don’t know. Daniel told me once.”
“You never mentioned this.”
“I thought he was being kind.”
The memory returned clearly.
We had been dating maybe nine months.
Grandpa was sick.
Daniel told me he had stopped by the nursing facility to introduce himself.
He said Grandpa had been confused and angry.
“He told me Grandpa threw a water cup at him.”
Mom looked horrified.
“Henry was not confused.”
“He had dementia.”
“Not then.”
The room went silent.
“What?”
“He developed memory problems during his final months. Not when you were dating Daniel.”
I felt another piece fall into place.
Daniel had told me Grandpa didn’t recognize him.
Maybe Grandpa recognized him too well.
Ruiz wrote down the facility name.
“We’ll look for visitor logs if they still exist.”
I leaned back.
“Why would Daniel tell me Grandpa was confused?”
“So you wouldn’t believe anything Henry said about him.”
My mother’s answer came instantly.
It made sickening sense.
That afternoon, police recovered Evan Pike’s boat.
It was drifting three miles offshore.
Empty.
No Evan.
No blood.
No sign of a struggle.
His wallet remained onboard.
So did his shoes.
It looked like a man had fallen into the water.
Detective Ruiz didn’t believe it.
Neither did I.
“Another accident,” I said.
She heard the bitterness.
“Maybe.”
“He works for Daniel. He tries to get into the NICU. Then his empty boat appears offshore.”
“We’re searching.”
“Is Rachel connected?”
“We’re checking.”
“Is Lauren talking?”
“Yes.”
“What is she saying?”
Ruiz hesitated.
“Some of it concerns you.”
“Tell me.”
Lauren claimed Daniel had never planned to stay with her.
That part didn’t surprise me.
What did surprise me was why.
Daniel had allegedly told Lauren he needed to remain married to me until my thirty-fifth birthday.
Then, suddenly, his timeline changed.
Six weeks ago.
The same week my insurance increased.
The same period when he contacted Margaret.
“Something scared him,” Ruiz said.
“What?”
“That’s what we’re trying to determine.”
Lauren claimed Daniel had received a package at his office.
After opening it, he became frantic.
He shredded papers.
Called someone repeatedly.
Then told Lauren they had “run out of time.”
“What was in the package?”
“She never saw.”
“Who sent it?”
“She doesn’t know.”
I thought about the trust.
The property offer.
Rachel.
My father’s death.
Too many possibilities.
Then Mom spoke.
“My brother.”
I turned.
“What brother?”
She froze.
Detective Ruiz slowly lowered her pen.
My voice dropped.
“You have a brother?”
Mom looked like she wanted the floor to swallow her.
“Half brother.”
I laughed in disbelief.
“Of course you do.”
“Sarah…”
“No. Go ahead. Apparently today is family-secret day.”
“My father had a son before he married my mother.”
“Name?”
“David.”
“Last name?”
“Whitmore.”
“Alive?”
“I think so.”
“You think?”
“We haven’t spoken in thirty years.”
“Why?”
“Because David believed he should inherit the land business.”
“And Grandpa didn’t agree.”
“No.”
“What happened?”
“He left Florida.”
Ruiz asked, “Would he know about the trust?”
“Yes.”
“Would he know about Thomas Carter—sorry, Thomas Whitmore’s death?”
My mother nodded.
“David was the one who told my father that Victor might be involved.”
I rubbed my forehead.
“Where is David now?”
“Last I heard, Texas.”
Ruiz was already searching databases.
I stared at my mother.
“How many other relatives are going to appear?”
“None.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes.”
“Because I’m running out of emotional capacity.”
She almost smiled.
Almost.
Then Ruiz looked up.
“David Whitmore died three months ago.”
Mom’s expression collapsed.
“What?”
“Houston. Heart attack.”
She covered her mouth.
I felt guilty for my anger.
“Mom.”
“I should have called him.”
“You didn’t know.”
“We wasted thirty years.”
She turned away.
Ruiz kept reading.
“David had one child.”
“Who?” I asked.
“A daughter.”
The detective’s expression changed.
“What?”
She turned the screen toward us.
Name:
Rachel Whitmore Monroe.
I felt the room shift.
Rachel Monroe.
Mark’s missing wife.
Daniel’s plane ticket.
My mother’s secret cousin.
My grandfather’s estranged granddaughter.
“Rachel is family.”
Mom whispered, “David had a daughter?”
Ruiz nodded.
“Forty-one years old.”
I stared at the screen.
“Did Daniel know?”
“Almost certainly.”
Everything accelerated after that.
Police obtained records showing Rachel had flown to Tampa four days after her father’s death.
She met with Margaret’s office but never saw Margaret directly.
She requested information about the Whitmore trust.
Her request was denied because she wasn’t a beneficiary.
Then she met Daniel.
Security records put them together three times.
The final meeting was the night she disappeared.
“She sent the package,” I said.
Ruiz looked at me.
“What?”
“Lauren said Daniel got a package six weeks ago and panicked. Rachel was digging into the trust.”
“That’s possible.”
“What could she have found?”
Mom looked at me.
“Something about your father.”
Ruiz ordered another review of Rachel’s financial records.
By evening, they found a payment to a private investigator.
The investigator’s name was Alan Pierce.
He lived in Orlando.
Police contacted him.
He agreed to meet.
What he brought changed the case again.
Alan had spent two months investigating the boating accident that killed my father.
Rachel hired him after finding old papers among David’s belongings.
According to those papers, my father had not gone boating alone.
There were two people with him.
Victor Carter.
And Victor’s sixteen-year-old son.
Daniel.
The original police report listed only my father.
Witness statements had disappeared.
Marina logs were incomplete.
But Alan found a retired dockworker.
The man remembered the argument.
He remembered Victor shouting at my father.
And he remembered teenage Daniel standing beside the boat.
“He saw them leave together?” I asked Ruiz.
“Yes.”
“Did he see them return?”
“Victor and Daniel returned.”
“My father didn’t.”
My mother broke down.
I held her hand.
Neither of us spoke for several minutes.
Finally I asked, “Why wasn’t Victor arrested?”
“No body trauma proving homicide. No witness to what happened on the water. And apparently Victor told police Thomas fell overboard while they were on separate boats.”
“That’s insane.”
“It was twenty-three years ago.”
Ruiz looked angry too.
“Investigations were different. Evidence gets lost. People lie.”
“What happened to Victor?”
“He died five years later.”
“How?”
“Car accident.”
I laughed bitterly.
“Another accident.”
Ruiz didn’t.
Alan’s report contained one more thing.
Rachel had discovered that Daniel received money after Victor’s death from an offshore account.
Payments continued annually.
Even while Daniel was dating me.
The source?
A company once controlled by my grandfather’s former financial adviser.
Maybe Victor hadn’t acted alone.
Maybe my father had discovered something larger.
Then my phone rang from an unknown number.
Ruiz gestured for me to answer on speaker.
“Hello?”
No one spoke.
Then a woman whispered.
“Sarah?”
Every person in the room froze.
“Yes.”
“My name is Rachel Monroe.”
My heart hammered.
Ruiz immediately signaled someone outside.
“Where are you?”
“I can’t tell you.”
“Police think you disappeared.”
“I had to.”
“Why?”
“Because Daniel tried to kill me.”
Mom gripped the bed rail.
Rachel continued.
“I found out what his father did to yours.”
“What happened to my father?”
“Daniel knows.”
“Were you there when you disappeared?”
“I confronted him.”
“At his office?”
“Yes.”
“What did he do?”
“He locked the door.”
Her breathing became uneven.
“He told me I had made the same mistake your father made.”
A chill ran through me.
“What mistake?”
“Thinking the Carters were the ones in control.”
I looked at Ruiz.
“What does that mean?”
Rachel began crying.
“Sarah, Daniel isn’t the person at the top.”
“Then who is?”
“I don’t know.”
“You called me. Tell me what you know.”
“I found payments.”
“What payments?”
“To Daniel. To Victor. To your grandfather’s attorney.”
Margaret’s face on the video screen went rigid.
“Which attorney?”
“Not Margaret Cole.”
Rachel continued.
“The attorney before her. William Grant.”
The prosecutor standing across from me stopped breathing.
Assistant State Attorney Michael Grant.
I looked at him.
His face had drained of color.
Rachel spoke again.
“William Grant had a son.”
Every eye in the room turned toward Michael.
I whispered, “What was his son’s name?”
Michael Grant backed toward the door.
Rachel answered.
May you like
“Michael.”
The prosecutor ran.
