Chapter 8 - THE WOMAN THEY WANTED SILENT
I ran.
I didn't know who was inside the house, and I didn't know whether Evelyn was alive, but I knew staying there meant becoming trapped. I grabbed Lily from the car seat, pushed through the back door, and ran toward the alley behind the house.
A black SUV accelerated around the corner.
I ducked behind a parked truck.
The SUV stopped.
Two men stepped out.
Neither of them was Scott.
That frightened me more than if I had seen my husband.
Because it meant the threat was bigger than him.
I waited until they disappeared into the house, then drove directly to the police station.
I handed over everything.
The documents.
The recordings.
The forged signatures.
And Evelyn's phone.
A detective named Rebecca Shaw listened to the recording from the flash drive without interrupting me.
When it finished, she looked at me.
“Diane, this isn't just a divorce case.”
“I know.”
She opened the photograph.
“Do you know who Marcus Hale is?”
“No.”
She studied me for a moment.
“Then you need to understand something.”
She turned the photograph around.
“Marcus Hale has financed several companies connected to Scott over the past fifteen years.”
My mouth went dry.
“How many?”
“Seven that we know about.”
I looked at the documents.
“Why would he want my company?”
The detective didn't answer immediately.
Then she pointed at one line on the oldest document.
“Because your company wasn't valuable when you started it.”
I frowned.
“What does that mean?”
“It means someone invested in you before you became successful.”
She tapped the date.
“Fourteen years ago.”
My heartbeat quickened.
“Who?”
“We're still tracing it.”
Then she looked at me.
“But there is something else.”
She opened Evelyn's phone.
A deleted message had been recovered.
The sender was Evelyn.
The recipient was an unknown number.
The message had been sent six months earlier.
“Diane is going to find out.”
The reply came two minutes later.
“Then make sure she doesn't.”
I stared at the screen.
“That's when Evelyn started hiding the money.”
The detective nodded.
“Probably.”
I remembered the suitcase.
The $812,000.
The key.
The documents.
Suddenly, the amount didn't feel like an inheritance.
It felt like a warning.
Evelyn hadn't been preparing me to leave Scott.
She had been preparing me to survive him.
Then the detective's phone rang.
She listened for several seconds.
Her expression changed.
“What?”
She stood up.
“Where?”
She listened again.
Then slowly lowered the phone.
“Diane…”
“What?”
“They found Evelyn.”
My heart jumped.
“Is she alive?”
The detective looked at me.
“Yes.”
I almost collapsed with relief.
Then she added,
“But she's in the hospital.”
“Why?”
The detective's face hardened.
“Someone tried to kill her.”
I couldn't breathe.
“Who?”
“We don't know yet.”
She paused.
“But Evelyn woke up for less than thirty seconds.”
I stepped closer.
“What did she say?”
The detective looked directly into my eyes.
“She asked whether you had opened the second envelope.”
I froze.
“What second envelope?”
The detective stared at me.
“You didn't know about it?”
I shook my head.
She reached into an evidence bag.
Inside was a small white envelope.
My name was written across it.
May you like
And underneath my name were five words.
“THE TRUTH ABOUT YOUR DAUGHTER.”
