PART 5: THE WOMAN WHO CAME TO TAKE THE TAPE
Ms. Alvarez reached inside her coat.
Officer Reynolds raised his weapon.
“Hands where I can see them!”
For one terrible second, nobody breathed.
Tyler stood frozen beside the table.
Richard moved instinctively in front of me.
Ms. Harrison backed toward the wall, her eyes locked on the cassette in the social worker’s hand.
And Ms. Alvarez smiled.
Not nervously.
Not desperately.
Calmly.
As if all morning she had been waiting for us to finally understand who she was.
“Don’t,” Officer Reynolds warned.
Ms. Alvarez slowly pulled her hand from inside her coat.
She wasn’t holding a gun.
She was holding a small black device.
A remote.
Officer Reynolds shouted, “Drop it!”
Her thumb hovered over the button.
“If I drop this,” she said, “you lose more than the tape.”
David’s face went white.
“Oh God.”
I looked at him.
“You know what that is?”
He didn’t answer.
“David.”
He whispered, “A transmitter.”
Officer Reynolds kept his weapon trained on her.
“For what?”
David’s eyes moved toward the windows.
“Possibly an explosive.”
Tyler stumbled backward.
“What?”
Ms. Alvarez smiled wider.
“David always was dramatic.”
“Is there a bomb?” Reynolds demanded.
She looked at him.
“Would you like to find out?”
Every instinct in my body screamed at me to run.
But after everything that morning, fear had changed inside me.
It was still there.
It simply no longer controlled my mouth.
“Who are you?”
Ms. Alvarez looked at me.
“You really don’t recognize me?”
“No.”
“I suppose that’s fair.”
She tilted her head.
“The last time you saw me, I was six.”
My heart skipped.
I searched her face.
Dark eyes.
High cheekbones.
A narrow chin.
Something familiar.
Something buried beneath thirty years.
David whispered, “Margaret.”
I looked at him.
He knew.
“Tell me.”
He closed his eyes.
“Her name isn’t Alvarez.”
The woman smiled.
“No.”
“What is it?”
She answered before David could.
“Rebecca Hayes.”
I froze.
Hayes.
Leonard.
My father’s business partner.
Michael’s supposed father-in-law.
“Leonard’s daughter?”
“His youngest.”
My skin went cold.
David said, “Claire was the oldest. Rebecca was the child Leonard kept away from everything.”
Rebecca laughed softly.
“Kept away?”
Her eyes hardened.
“My father didn’t keep anyone away from anything. He trained us.”
Officer Reynolds said, “Put the device down.”
“No.”
“What do you want?”
She lifted the cassette.
“This.”
Ms. Harrison’s voice trembled.
“You stole it from the box.”
Rebecca looked at her.
“You were too busy reading dead men’s letters.”
“How long have you been involved?”
Rebecca smiled.
“With this family?”
She looked at me.
“Since before Tyler was born.”
Tyler stared at her.
“You knew me?”
“Oh, Tyler.”
Her smile became almost pitying.
“I’ve known everything about you.”
He looked sick.
“What does that mean?”
“It means your uncle Michael wasn’t the first person watching you.”
I turned toward David.
“Did you know she was involved?”
“No.”
Rebecca laughed.
“He knew enough.”
“Stop talking in riddles,” I snapped.
Her eyes shifted to me.
And for some reason, that seemed to amuse her.
“You’re exactly like your father.”
“So everyone keeps telling me.”
“You think that’s a compliment?”
“I don’t care.”
Her smile disappeared.
Good.
For once, I had taken something from her.
Officer Reynolds repeated, “Rebecca, put down the device.”
She looked toward the front window.
“You have maybe four minutes before this entire house becomes a crime scene.”
Reynolds’s expression changed.
“Where is the device?”
She shook her head.
“Wrong question.”
He radioed for evacuation and bomb response.
Suddenly everyone was moving.
Officers ordered us toward the rear of the house.
Rebecca remained by the back door.
David grabbed my arm.
“Go.”
I pulled away.
“She has the tape.”
“Forget the tape.”
“That tape may contain proof about my child.”
His face crumpled.
“I know.”
“Then don’t tell me to forget it.”
Tyler shouted, “Mom, move!”
I looked at him.
The terror in his face wasn’t for himself.
Not entirely.
That surprised me.
Rebecca backed toward the door.
Officer Reynolds kept his weapon on her.
“You’re not leaving.”
She held up the remote.
“You sure?”
Nobody moved.
Then my phone rang.
Unknown number.
Rebecca’s eyes flicked toward it.
That tiny movement told me everything.
The call mattered.
I answered.
“Hello?”
Michael.
“Maggie, get out.”
“You knew Rebecca was here.”
Silence.
“You sent her.”
“No.”
“She said you did.”
“She works for Leonard.”
Rebecca laughed.
“Still lying, Michael?”
Michael heard her.
His voice changed.
“Rebecca.”
“Hello, brother-in-law.”
Tyler stared between us.
I put the phone on speaker.
Michael said, “Whatever she told you, don’t believe her.”
Rebecca rolled her eyes.
“Your favorite sentence.”
I asked, “Did you send her to steal the cassette?”
“No.”
Rebecca raised the tape.
“Then why did you tell me exactly where it would be?”
Everyone went still.
Michael said nothing.
Rebecca smiled.
“There it is.”
I gripped the phone.
“Michael?”
He finally answered.
“I needed the tape removed.”
“Why?”
“Because David would use it against me.”
David shouted, “Because it proves what you did!”
Michael snapped, “It proves what YOU did!”
Their voices collided.
I screamed, “ENOUGH!”
The room went silent.
My voice shook, but I didn’t care.
“I am done listening to men argue about which lie protects me better.”
I looked at Rebecca.
“You say that tape matters?”
“Yes.”
“Michael says it matters?”
“Yes.”
“David says it matters?”
“Yes.”
“Then nobody leaves with it.”
Rebecca’s expression hardened.
“You don’t have a choice.”
“Everyone keeps saying that to me.”
I stepped closer.
Richard whispered, “Margaret.”
I ignored him.
“Last night my son thought I didn’t have a choice.”
Tyler looked down.
“This morning my dead brother thought I didn’t have a choice.”
I pointed toward David.
“My dead husband apparently thought the same thing forty years ago.”
Then I looked directly at Rebecca.
“You’re all starting to sound very repetitive.”
Her eyes narrowed.
“You think this is courage?”
“No.”
I swallowed.
“I think I’m finally tired enough to stop being impressed by threats.”
For the first time, Rebecca looked uncertain.
Just for a second.
But I saw it.
So did Officer Reynolds.
He moved half a step closer.
Rebecca noticed.
Her thumb pressed slightly against the remote.
“Back up.”
Reynolds stopped.
Michael’s voice came through the phone.
“Rebecca, don’t do anything stupid.”
She laughed.
“You’re worried about stupid now?”
“Leonard is using you.”
“My father is dying.”
Everyone froze.
I stared at her.
“Leonard is dying?”
Rebecca’s expression changed.
The smile disappeared.
“Pancreatic cancer.”
David whispered, “How long?”
“Weeks.”
Michael said nothing.
Rebecca looked at the phone.
“You didn’t tell her?”
I looked at Michael’s name on the screen.
“Tell me what?”
Rebecca answered.
“My father contacted Michael because he wanted to confess before he died.”
David laughed bitterly.
“Leonard confess?”
“Yes.”
“To what?”
“Everything.”
Michael shouted, “Don’t!”
Rebecca’s eyes brightened.
Now she knew exactly where to cut.
She looked at me.
“The warehouse fire.”
My stomach tightened.
“Go on.”
“The fake deaths.”
David clenched his jaw.
“The bribery.”
Officer Reynolds listened carefully.
“Your father’s trust.”
Ms. Harrison stepped forward.
“And my father?”
Rebecca looked at her.
The room became painfully still.
“Yes.”
Ms. Harrison’s face drained of color.
“You know what happened to him.”
Rebecca hesitated.
That was enough.
Ms. Harrison rushed toward her.
“WHERE IS MY FATHER?”
Officer Reynolds grabbed her before she reached Rebecca.
Rebecca raised the remote.
“Don’t!”
Ms. Harrison struggled.
“You know where he is!”
Rebecca’s expression softened.
For the first time, she looked almost human.
“He died trying to help Margaret’s father.”
Ms. Harrison stopped fighting.
“What?”
Rebecca swallowed.
“My father didn’t kill Detective Harrison.”
“Then who did?”
Rebecca looked at the phone.
Michael said, “Don’t you dare.”
She smiled sadly.
“Still scared of the truth?”
“Rebecca.”
“Her father deserves to know what his daughter became because of you.”
Ms. Harrison stared at the speaker.
“What did Michael do?”
Rebecca whispered, “He left your father inside Warehouse Two.”
A sound escaped Ms. Harrison’s throat.
“No.”
Michael shouted, “That’s not what happened!”
Rebecca continued.
“Samuel Harrison was injured. He could still walk. Michael locked the rear fire door.”
David closed his eyes.
Ms. Harrison stared at him.
“You knew?”
David said nothing.
“You knew?”
“I arrived after.”
“You knew!”
“I knew what Michael claimed.”
“What did he claim?”
David whispered, “That Samuel had betrayed them.”
Rebecca shook her head.
“He hadn’t.”
Michael’s voice became furious.
“You weren’t there!”
“No,” Rebecca said. “But Leonard was.”
Silence.
Even Michael had no immediate answer.
Rebecca continued.
“My father watched Michael lock the door.”
Ms. Harrison broke.
She sank against Officer Reynolds.
“My father burned alive?”
Rebecca’s eyes lowered.
“Yes.”
Nobody spoke for several seconds.
Then Ms. Harrison looked at Michael’s voice coming through the phone.
“You killed my father.”
Michael said, “No.”
“You locked him in.”
“It wasn’t that simple.”
“What part of locking a man inside a burning building is complicated?”
“He had the ledger.”
Rebecca laughed.
“And there it is.”
I stared at the phone.
“You were protecting the operation.”
Michael exhaled.
“Maggie, listen—”
“No.”
“You don’t understand what was happening.”
“Then explain it.”
“I was twenty-seven.”
“So?”
“I was in debt.”
“So?”
“Leonard owned people.”
“So?”
“I thought I could take money, get out, and disappear.”
“So you helped him.”
“For a while.”
“And Samuel discovered it.”
Michael was silent.
Ms. Harrison whispered, “My father discovered you.”
“Yes.”
Her face twisted.
“And you killed him.”
“No.”
“STOP SAYING NO!”
Her scream shook the room.
Michael’s voice cracked.
“I locked the door because I thought there was another exit.”
Rebecca said quietly, “There wasn’t.”
Michael shouted, “Leonard told me there was!”
Rebecca stared at the phone.
“And you believed my father?”
Silence.
That silence told us more than anything.
Michael had chosen himself.
Maybe he hadn’t planned a murder.
Maybe he hadn’t known Samuel would die.
But he had locked the door.
The man I had mourned for twenty-one years had spent those years hiding not only from danger.
He had been hiding from what he had done.
I looked at Tyler.
His face had collapsed.
The uncle who had convinced him I was the cause of everything wrong in his life was suddenly becoming something much uglier.
“You told me she was evil,” Tyler whispered.
Michael’s voice changed.
“Tyler—”
“You said she destroyed you.”
“Your mother isn’t innocent.”
Tyler looked at me.
Then back at the phone.
“What did she do?”
Michael hesitated.
“Exactly.”
Tyler’s expression changed.
“You never actually told me.”
Michael said nothing.
“You just said she betrayed you. That she stole from you. That she wanted Grandpa’s money.”
“Tyler.”
“You used me.”
“No.”
“You USED me.”
“I tried to help you.”
“You had me steal from my mother!”
“I told you the money belonged to the family.”
“You had me copy her ID!”
“For the trust.”
“You told me to search her room!”
“Because I needed the key.”
Tyler’s breathing became heavy.
Rebecca watched him carefully.
Michael continued.
“You wanted out of that house.”
Tyler stared at the floor.
“You told me she’d never let me become a man.”
I closed my eyes.
That sentence explained more than I wanted it to.
Michael had found every wound inside Tyler and poured poison into it.
But Tyler still chose what he did afterward.
Both things could be true.
Manipulation.
Responsibility.
That was the lesson I had spent years refusing to learn.
Rebecca suddenly checked her watch.
“Two minutes.”
Officer Reynolds snapped, “Until what?”
She raised the remote.
“Until Leonard’s people assume I’m compromised.”
“What happens then?”
“This house burns.”
My blood went cold.
David shouted, “She’s bluffing.”
Rebecca looked at him.
“Want to test it?”
Reynolds gave the evacuation order again.
This time nobody argued.
Officers moved us toward the backyard.
I grabbed the black metal box.
Officer Reynolds said, “Leave it.”
“No.”
“Margaret.”
“My father’s documents are inside.”
“We can recover them later.”
“If there is a later.”
He stared at me.
Then grabbed the box himself.
“Fine. Move.”
Richard took my arm.
Tyler helped Ms. Harrison walk.
David stayed close.
Rebecca backed toward the rear door.
Still holding the cassette.
Still holding the remote.
Then something unexpected happened.
A red light appeared on the device.
Rebecca stared at it.
Her face changed.
“No.”
Officer Reynolds saw.
“What?”
Rebecca pressed another button.
Nothing.
“What’s happening?”
She pressed again.
“No.”
“What?”
She looked terrified.
“The signal changed.”
David whispered, “Someone else has control.”
Rebecca looked toward the street.
“Everybody run.”
That was the moment I believed her.
We poured into the backyard.
Officers pushed us toward the neighboring property.
I heard sirens.
People shouting.
A dog barking.
Then a deafening explosion shattered the morning.
The windows of my house blew outward.
I fell.
Richard landed beside me.
Tyler screamed, “MOM!”
Smoke rolled from the front side of the house.
My ears rang.
For a moment, I couldn’t hear anything else.
Then Tyler’s hands were on my shoulders.
“Mom!”
I opened my eyes.
He was bleeding from a cut above his eyebrow.
“I’m okay.”
He helped me up.
Flames were spreading from the front room.
My mother’s tablecloth.
The china.
The kitchen where I had raised my son.
The living room where my father had spent his final Christmas.
All of it disappeared behind smoke.
I watched my house burn.
And something inside me became very calm.
Maybe because grief had finally run out of new shapes.
Officer Reynolds shouted for everyone to keep moving.
Then he stopped.
“Where’s Rebecca?”
We all turned.
She wasn’t with us.
Neither was David.
My stomach dropped.
“David?”
Richard looked around.
“David!”
Tyler pointed toward the side of the house.
“There!”
Two figures were struggling beside the detached garage.
David had Rebecca pinned against the fence.
She still had the cassette.
He grabbed for it.
She kicked him.
He stumbled.
Then David pulled something from his pocket.
A knife.
I froze.
Officer Reynolds drew his weapon.
“DROP IT!”
David turned.
For one second, I saw his face.
Not the old man who remembered Cedar Point.
Not the boy I had married.
Something harder.
Rebecca screamed, “He wants the tape!”
David shouted, “She’s taking it to Leonard!”
Rebecca yelled, “Leonard doesn’t want the tape!”
“Then who does?”
She pointed at David.
“HE DOES!”
David lunged.
Officer Reynolds fired.
The shot cracked through the smoke.
David dropped.
I screamed.
The knife landed in the grass.
Tyler pulled me back.
Rebecca slid down the fence.
Her hands were shaking.
The cassette remained clutched against her chest.
Officer Reynolds rushed toward David.
“Don’t move!”
David groaned.
The bullet had struck his shoulder.
Blood spread across his coat.
He looked at me.
“Maggie.”
I stared at him.
“Why?”
He shook his head.
“Don’t give her the tape.”
Rebecca laughed breathlessly.
“You still think this is about Leonard.”
“What is it about?”
David looked at her with hatred.
Rebecca slowly stood.
And then she held the cassette toward me.
“You want the truth?”
I hesitated.
“Give it to me.”
She did.
Just like that.
I stared at the black plastic in my hand.
The object everyone had lied for.
Stolen for.
Killed for.
Rebecca said, “Listen to side B first.”
David shouted from the ground.
“NO!”
Every head turned.
Rebecca smiled sadly.
“That reaction should tell you enough.”
I looked at David.
His face had drained of color.
“What is on side B?”
He said nothing.
“David.”
“Margaret, please.”
Rebecca whispered, “He didn’t come here to protect you.”
I gripped the cassette.
“Then why did he come?”
“To destroy this.”
David shouted, “She’s lying!”
Rebecca ignored him.
“Side A contains Michael’s confession about Samuel Harrison.”
Ms. Harrison’s entire body stiffened.
“And side B?”
Rebecca looked directly at me.
“David’s confession.”
I stared at him.
“To what?”
She answered.
“The death everyone forgot.”
“What death?”
Rebecca glanced toward Tyler.
Then back at me.
“The baby wasn’t the only child David took from you.”
My heart stopped.
I almost couldn’t speak.
“What?”
David closed his eyes.
Rebecca continued.
“You didn’t lose one child.”
My vision blurred.
“You lost two.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“No.”
“You gave birth before the car accident.”
The world tilted.
“That is impossible.”
“Ask him.”
I looked at David.
He wouldn’t meet my eyes.
“David.”
Silence.
“LOOK AT ME.”
He opened his eyes.
Tears ran down his face.
And immediately I knew.
There are truths your body recognizes before your mind does.
“What happened?”
David shook his head.
“Maggie—”
“What happened to my child?”
“You were sedated.”
I couldn’t breathe.
“Why?”
“You went into labor early.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“What child?”
“A boy.”
My knees nearly gave out.
Tyler caught me.
I didn’t even notice.
“How old was I?”
“Nineteen.”
Before David supposedly died.
Before the accident.
Before everything.
“Was he alive?”
David sobbed.
“Yes.”
I slapped him.
Hard.
Officer Reynolds stepped between us.
I barely felt my hand.
“Where is he?”
David looked at the ground.
“Margaret.”
“WHERE IS MY SON?”
“He didn’t die.”
Everything stopped.
Even the burning house seemed to disappear.
Tyler whispered, “Mom?”
I looked at David.
“You gave my baby away?”
He shook his head.
“Leonard arranged it.”
“But you agreed.”
“I thought it would keep him safe.”
“From what?”
“From me.”
I stared.
David’s voice broke.
“I was already working for Leonard. I owed people money. I had made mistakes. When the baby came early, Leonard said the child could be used against us.”
“So you erased him.”
“I signed papers.”
My stomach turned.
“What papers?”
“A private adoption.”
“To whom?”
“I didn’t know at first.”
“Who raised my son?”
David looked at Rebecca.
She didn’t speak.
I grabbed his coat.
“WHO RAISED MY SON?”
David whispered, “Samuel Harrison.”
Ms. Harrison gasped.
I turned toward her.
Her face went completely white.
“No.”
David continued.
“Samuel and his wife couldn’t have children. Leonard arranged it through a doctor.”
Ms. Harrison shook her head.
“No.”
I stared at her.
“How old are you?”
She looked at me.
“Forty.”
My heart stopped.
Too old.
Then David said, “Not her.”
Ms. Harrison covered her mouth.
“My brother.”
Everyone froze.
She stared at David.
“Daniel?”
David nodded.
Ms. Harrison began trembling.
“My brother is adopted.”
I couldn’t feel my hands.
“How old?”
“Thirty-nine.”
I was fifty-eight.
I had been nineteen.
The numbers fit.
“Where is he?”
Ms. Harrison looked at me as if the world had just broken open between us.
“Seattle.”
“Does he know?”
“No.”
“Does he know Samuel wasn’t his biological father?”
“He knows he was adopted.”
My knees weakened.
“Does he know who I am?”
She shook her head.
“I don’t think so.”
David whispered, “He doesn’t.”
I turned on him.
“You knew where he was all these years?”
“Yes.”
“And you watched me think I had no child?”
“Yes.”
Something inside me snapped.
Not violently.
Cleanly.
Like a thread that had been stretched for four decades and finally understood it had permission to break.
I looked at the cassette.
Then at the burning house.
Then at Tyler.
My twenty-three-year-old son, who had hurt me and still stood beside me.
Then at Ms. Harrison.
A woman whose brother might also be my son.
And suddenly this morning was no longer about eviction.
Or money.
Or land.
Or even Michael.
It was about an entire lifetime that had been edited without my consent.
Rebecca said quietly, “Now you understand why the tape matters.”
I looked at her.
“No.”
“There is more.”
I almost laughed.
“Of course there is.”
She looked at the cassette.
“The recording identifies the doctor.”
“Who?”
“Dr. Evelyn Carter.”
I frowned.
The name meant nothing.
Tyler reacted.
“What?”
I looked at him.
“You know her?”
“No.”
“You reacted.”
Tyler stared at the burning house.
Then slowly looked at me.
“Grandma used to talk about an Evelyn.”
My mother.
“What did she say?”
“I don’t remember.”
“Tyler.”
He closed his eyes.
“When she was sick, she got confused sometimes.”
“Yes.”
“She used to say, ‘Evelyn took Margaret’s boy.’”
My blood turned to ice.
“You heard that?”
“I thought she meant something else.”
“How many times?”
“Three. Maybe four.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I was fourteen!”
He looked horrified.
“I didn’t know what it meant.”
My mother knew.
All those years.
My mother knew.
I nearly collapsed.
Richard steadied me.
“She knew.”
David whispered, “Eventually.”
“When?”
“After your father died.”
“And she never told me?”
“She tried.”
“No.”
“She wrote you a letter.”
I stared at him.
“What letter?”
David’s face became grim.
“Michael took it.”
My grief instantly became rage.
“Michael again.”
“He needed you not to know about Daniel.”
“Why?”
Rebecca answered.
“Because Daniel inherits half the trust.”
I looked at her.
“The land?”
“Yes.”
“And Michael gets nothing?”
“Correct.”
Now everything began connecting.
Michael needed control of me.
Tyler.
My identity.
The trust.
The key.
Not because he wanted revenge.
Because if Daniel existed, Michael couldn’t control the inheritance.
“How much is Daniel’s share worth?”
Rebecca said, “At current development estimates?”
I waited.
“Possibly eighteen million.”
Tyler whispered, “Jesus.”
I looked toward Ms. Harrison.
She looked overwhelmed.
“My brother doesn’t even know.”
Rebecca shook her head.
“He was never supposed to.”
“Why?”
“Because Leonard wanted the trust consolidated.”
“In whose name?”
Rebecca’s expression changed.
“Michael’s.”
There it was.
Money.
The oldest motive.
The easiest one to hide beneath family pain.
I looked down at the cassette.
“Can we play this?”
Officer Reynolds said, “Not here. It needs to be preserved as evidence.”
“I need to hear it.”
“And you will.”
A paramedic arrived for David.
He resisted.
“I need to talk to Margaret.”
“No,” I said.
He stared at me.
“Maggie—”
“Don’t call me that.”
His face collapsed.
Good.
He deserved at least one small pain.
They began treating his shoulder.
Then Rebecca’s phone rang.
She looked at the screen.
Her expression changed.
“It’s him.”
“Leonard?”
She nodded.
Officer Reynolds motioned for speaker.
Rebecca answered.
“Dad.”
An old man’s voice came through.
Weak.
Breathless.
“Rebecca?”
“Yes.”
“You have Margaret?”
I stared.
Rebecca said, “She’s here.”
The man coughed.
Then spoke again.
“Margaret.”
I hadn’t heard Leonard Hayes’s voice since I was twenty-one.
But I recognized it.
“I want answers.”
He gave a tired laugh.
“You always did.”
“Did my son survive?”
“Yes.”
“Did my mother know?”
“Yes.”
“Did Michael kill Samuel Harrison?”
Silence.
“Leonard.”
“Yes.”
Ms. Harrison closed her eyes.
“Did David give my son away?”
“Yes.”
David shouted from the ground, “Leonard!”
Leonard ignored him.
“Did my father know?”
Another silence.
“Some of it.”
My hands tightened.
“Then tell me the rest.”
Leonard coughed for several seconds.
When he spoke again, his voice was weaker.
“There is one truth none of them know.”
Rebecca frowned.
“Dad?”
“Not David. Not Michael. Not even Rebecca.”
I looked at the phone.
“What?”
“Daniel isn’t the only child you lost.”
My heart stopped.
David tried to sit up.
“No.”
Leonard said, “David doesn’t know.”
Rebecca stared at the phone.
“Dad, what are you talking about?”
“Margaret gave birth to twins.”
The world vanished.
I heard Tyler say something.
I heard Richard swear.
I heard Ms. Harrison gasp.
But none of it reached me.
“Twins?”
Leonard whispered, “Two boys.”
I couldn’t breathe.
“One became Daniel Harrison.”
“And the other?”
Silence.
“Leonard.”
He began coughing violently.
“THE OTHER?”
Finally he caught his breath.
“The second boy wasn’t adopted.”
“Then where did he go?”
Leonard’s voice became almost inaudible.
“My wife took him.”
Rebecca’s face drained of color.
“What?”
“Your mother couldn’t have another child.”
Rebecca stared at the phone.
“No.”
Leonard whispered, “She raised him as ours.”
Rebecca staggered backward.
I stared at her.
“How many brothers do you have?”
She shook her head slowly.
“One.”
“Name?”
She couldn’t speak.
“REBECCA.”
Her lips trembled.
“Ethan.”
“How old?”
“Thirty-nine.”
My entire body went cold.
Two sons.
Twins.
One raised by Samuel Harrison.
One raised by Leonard Hayes.
One connected to the man trying to expose the conspiracy.
One raised inside the family that created it.
“Where is Ethan?”
Rebecca suddenly looked terrified.
“I don’t know.”
Leonard whispered through the phone.
“That’s why I called.”
Rebecca’s eyes widened.
“What happened?”
“He knows.”
“Knows what?”
“Everything.”
A chill ran down my spine.
Leonard continued.
“He found the adoption records yesterday.”
“Where is he?”
“He left.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know.”
Then Leonard spoke directly to me.
“Margaret, listen carefully.”
I gripped the phone.
“Yes.”
“Ethan has spent his whole life believing Michael destroyed his family.”
Rebecca shook her head.
“No.”
Leonard continued.
“And now he knows you are his mother.”
My heart pounded.
“What does he want?”
Leonard whispered four words.
“He wants his brother.”
“Daniel?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Leonard began crying.
An old man’s broken sob.
“Because Michael told Ethan that Daniel is the only person standing between him and eighteen million dollars.”
Ms. Harrison grabbed her phone.
“My brother.”
She dialed.
No answer.
Again.
No answer.
Again.
Voicemail.
Her face went white.
“Daniel isn’t answering.”
Officer Reynolds immediately began issuing orders.
Then my phone buzzed.
Unknown number.
A photograph appeared.
A man standing outside an airport terminal.
Dark hair.
Blue jacket.
Carrying a backpack.
Underneath it:
YOUR SON LANDED IN COLUMBUS THIS MORNING.
Ms. Harrison stared.
“That’s Daniel.”
My breath disappeared.
Another photograph arrived.
This one showed a second man standing behind him.
Similar height.
Similar face.
Almost identical eyes.
The resemblance was unmistakable.
Twins.
My sons.
Together.
A message appeared beneath the picture.
YOU HAVE UNTIL 2:00 P.M.
BRING THE CASSETTE TO LOCKER 317.
OR YOU ONLY GET ONE SON BACK………….
TO BE CONTINUED IN PART 6…
