Chapter 9 - THE CHILD THEY WERE AFTER
I couldn't open the envelope.
Not immediately.
My hands were shaking too badly.
The detective placed it on the table between us.
“Evelyn told the nurse this belonged to you.”
I stared at my name.
Diane.
The handwriting was hers.
I opened it.
There was only one page.
“Diane, if you are reading this, then they know about Lily.”
My heart stopped.
I looked toward the detective.
She remained silent.
I continued reading.
“Scott didn't bring Vanessa into your life because he stopped loving you.”
I swallowed.
“He brought her in because he needed someone who could help him create a believable reason for your disappearance.”
My eyes blurred.
Then came the sentence that changed everything.
“Lily is the reason they cannot simply destroy you.”
I looked at my daughter.
She was sleeping peacefully in the hospital room next to mine, unaware that adults were fighting over her future.
I read on.
“Your daughter inherited something from you.”
I frowned.
“What?”
The letter didn't say.
Instead, Evelyn wrote about a trust created before I married Scott.
A trust connected to my original 51-percent ownership.
A trust that would activate under one condition.
If Scott ever attempted to remove me from the company through fraud, the controlling shares would automatically be placed under the protection of my direct heir.
My daughter.
Lily.
I felt the room spin.
Scott hadn't only been trying to take my company.
He had been trying to make sure Lily never had the legal right to inherit it.
The detective read the letter over my shoulder.
“That's why he needs you to look like a criminal.”
I nodded slowly.
“If I'm convicted, my ownership becomes disputed.”
“And Lily's inheritance becomes vulnerable.”
I looked down at the final paragraph.
Evelyn had written one last warning.
“Do not trust Daniel.”
I already knew that.
But then came the name I wasn't expecting.
“Do not trust Scott's father.”
I stopped.
Scott's father was dead.
Or so I had always been told.
I looked at the detective.
“My father-in-law died before I married Scott.”
She didn't answer.
“Didn't he?”
The detective slowly pulled another document from the evidence file.
A death certificate.
Then she placed a second paper beside it.
A financial transaction.
The date was three years after his supposed death.
I stared at it.
“That can't be real.”
“It is.”
The transaction had been made through an offshore account.
The beneficiary was Marcus Hale.
My voice dropped.
“Then who died?”
The detective looked at me.
“That is what we're trying to find out.”
Before I could respond, my phone rang.
Scott.
I stared at his name.
Then I answered.
His voice was surprisingly calm.
“Diane.”
“What did you do to my mother-in-law?”
Silence.
Then he sighed.
“You always were too trusting.”
“Where is she?”
“You're asking the wrong question again.”
I tightened my grip on the phone.
“What do you want?”
“I want you to stop.”
“Stop what?”
“Looking for the truth.”
I looked at Lily through the glass.
Scott's voice became colder.
“Because if you don't, the next person who disappears won't be my mother.”
My blood froze.
“Who?”
May you like
He whispered,
“Your daughter.”
