Chapter 11 - THE MAN BEHIND THE FAMILY
Two hours later, police found Evelyn Cross's abandoned car on a deserted road outside the city.
There was no blood.
No body.
No sign of a struggle.
It was almost as if she had simply vanished.
But someone had left something behind.
An envelope.
It was sitting on the driver's seat.
Baldric's name was written across the front in his wife's handwriting.
His stomach tightened.
He opened it carefully.
Inside was a photograph.
The image was old.
Very old.
His wife stood in the center.
Beside her was a young Arianne.
And behind them stood a man Baldric had not expected to see.
The photograph had been taken twenty-six years ago.
Baldric turned it over.
Six words were written on the back.
HE WAS THERE WHEN SHE DIED.
Baldric stared at the sentence.
Then at the man in the photograph.
Charles stepped closer.
“Who is that?”
Baldric didn't answer.
He didn't need to.
He knew the man.
He had seen him at the hospital on the night his wife died.
He had seen him at the funeral.
He had seen him at Arianne's wedding.
He had seen him at family dinners.
At business meetings.
At birthdays.
At every important moment of his life.
The man had never disappeared.
He had simply stayed close enough to watch.
Baldric's fingers tightened around the photograph.
“My wife knew.”
Charles looked at him.
“Knew what?”
“That someone close to me was involved.”
“Then why didn't she tell you?”
Baldric looked down at the handwriting.
His wife's handwriting.
The same handwriting that had warned him twenty-six years ago.
“Because she knew I wouldn't believe her.”
Before Charles could respond, Baldric's phone rang.
Arianne.
He answered immediately.
“Dad?”
“I'm here.”
Her voice was weak.
But there was something different in it.
Fear.
“Gideon told me something.”
Baldric's expression changed.
“What did he say?”
“He remembers the man from that night.”
Baldric stopped breathing for a moment.
“Who?”
Arianne swallowed.
“He called him Uncle.”
Baldric's eyes moved slowly toward the photograph in his hand.
“How old was Gideon when he saw him?”
“Four.”
“What exactly did he remember?”
Arianne began crying.
“Dad…”
“Tell me.”
“He said the man told him something.”
“What?”
Her voice broke.
“He told Gideon that one day…”
She struggled to finish.
“…he would inherit everything.”
Baldric closed his eyes.
The room suddenly felt smaller.
This was never about Arianne's marriage.
It was never about Derek.
It wasn't even about the Vances wanting control of his daughter's inheritance.
Someone had been thinking about Gideon long before anyone knew what he would inherit.
Someone had been preparing the boy.
Someone had been waiting for the right moment.
And suddenly Baldric understood the most frightening possibility of all.
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His grandson may not have been a victim caught in someone else's plan.
He may have been the reason the plan existed.
