Chapter 21
Rebecca stared at Mom.
“That’s impossible.”
Mom described the woman’s green coat and short blond hair.
Rebecca had owned a green coat five years earlier.
Dad stepped between them.
“My sister did not help attack you.”
“I didn’t say she did.”
“You said you saw her.”
Rebecca left the room.
I followed her outside.
She was shaking.
“I was at home that night,” she said.
“Can anyone prove it?”
“You think I need an alibi?”
“I think everyone has lied.”
The words hurt her.
But she understood.
Rebecca’s home alarm records from five years earlier showed her door opening at 10:14 p.m.
Mom’s crash occurred at 10:06.
Her house was forty minutes from the bridge.
She couldn’t have been in both places.
Unless someone else used her security code.
Evelyn knew the code.
So did Thomas.
So did Rebecca’s former husband, Victor.
Victor had divorced Rebecca four years earlier and moved to Colorado.
He had once worked as head of security for the Carter company.
Ruiz searched his travel records.
Victor flew from Denver to Dallas the day Dad was arrested.
He flew back the next morning.
He had been in Texas when the wrench appeared in Dad’s suitcase.
Rebecca called him.
He denied everything.
Then she asked about the green coat.
Victor hung up.
Police searched his Colorado home.
It was empty.
They found photographs of Mom, Dad, and Mercer.
A locked cabinet contained ammunition matching the bullet that killed Mercer.
Victor became the new suspect.
Rebecca broke down.
She had trusted him during Mom’s original disappearance.
He told her to stop questioning Mercer.
He claimed her suspicions would traumatize us.
“He was guiding me away from the truth,” she said.
The betrayal reopened every wound.
Victor sent her an encrypted message.
He said he had protected her from the Carter family.
He wanted to meet alone.
Ruiz prepared a controlled meeting at a public park.
Rebecca wore a microphone.
I watched from a surveillance van with Dad and Mom.
Victor arrived carrying flowers.
He looked ordinary.
That frightened me.
He hugged Rebecca before she could stop him.
“I never wanted you involved,” he said.
“Involved in what?”
“Evelyn’s mess.”
He admitted helping hide evidence after Mom’s crash.
He claimed Evelyn threatened to frame Rebecca if he refused.
“Did you kill Mercer?” she asked.
“Mercer was going to tell prosecutors everything.”
“Did you shoot Daniel?”
Victor looked toward the trees.
“That wasn’t supposed to happen.”
Dad reached for the van door.
Ruiz stopped him.
Rebecca kept Victor talking.
“Who ordered it?”
“Evelyn.”
Evelyn had feared Dad would expose the adoption fraud after his release.
Victor shot him but deliberately aimed away from his heart.
He killed Mercer because Mercer planned to flee with the ledger.
“Where is Grant Hale’s copy?” Rebecca asked.
Victor frowned.
“There are two ledgers?”
That reaction seemed real.
A shot shattered the park bench.
Victor fell.
Rebecca screamed.
Ruiz’s team rushed from cover.
The shooter fired again.
Dad pulled Mom and me to the floor of the van.
Police found the shooter on a nearby roof.
He was a Carter company employee named Dean Walsh.
Thomas’s private assistant.
Victor survived.
Dean confessed Thomas had sent him coded instructions from jail through a guard.
Thomas was still directing the violence.
The judge moved him into isolated federal custody.
No phone calls.
No visitors.
No contact with attorneys not screened by the court.
Before he was transferred, Thomas sent Dad one final message.
You can keep the company.
I know what happened to your first child.
Dad read it twice.
Mom took the phone from him.
“What first child?”
Dad looked at her.
“The baby you lost before Emma.”
May you like
Mom’s face turned white.
“I didn’t lose that baby.”
