Chapter 9 - EVAN’S MOTHER
I didn’t believe him.
Not at first.
Rachel was Evan’s mother.
Daniel’s former girlfriend.
The woman who had cried when she learned what Ryan had done.
But experienced liars don’t always lie by speaking.
Sometimes they cry.
Sometimes they tell ninety percent of the truth.
We brought Rachel in quietly.
She sat across from me with her arms folded.
“Where’s Evan?”
“Safe.”
“I want my son.”
“You’ll see him when we’re finished.”
Her eyes sharpened.
“What is this?”
I placed the ledger on the table.
She stared at it.
No surprise.
That was my answer.
“You’ve seen this before.”
“No.”
“You didn’t ask what it was.”
Her mouth tightened.
I slid a photograph toward her.
Ryan’s attorney leaving her workplace three weeks earlier.
Then another.
Rachel meeting Paul Grady in a grocery-store parking lot.
She looked at the table.
“Talk.”
She stayed silent.
“Rachel, your son was beaten and locked in a basement.”
“I never knew that.”
“I believe you.”
Her eyes rose.
“But you knew about everything else.”
Tears filled them.
Finally, she whispered, “I was trying to keep Evan alive.”
“By working with Grady?”
“I wasn’t working with him.”
“You met him.”
“He threatened me.”
“About Daniel?”
She nodded.
“Three months ago, someone mailed me a picture. Daniel was alive.”
“The same picture Ryan got?”
“No.”
She swallowed.
“Mine was different.”
She described Daniel standing beside a motel door.
On the back, someone had written:
HE CAME BACK FOR EVAN.
Ryan found the picture.
That’s when everything changed.
“He became obsessed,” Rachel said. “Searching the house. Watching Evan. Asking what Daniel had told him.”
“And you did nothing?”
“I was scared!”
“You’re his mother!”
“I KNOW!”
Her scream filled the room.
Then she broke.
“I know.”
Silence.
“Who shot at us in the quarry?” I asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Ryan’s lawyer says you sent him.”
“He’s lying.”
“Why?”
“Because that man works for my father.”
I froze.
“Your father?”
Rachel looked at me.
“My father owns the medical company.”
There it was.
The missing piece.
“Name.”
“Charles Voss.”
I knew Charles Voss.
Everybody did.
Philanthropist.
Hospital donor.
Businessman.
Former candidate for mayor.
The type of man whose name was on buildings.
Rachel wiped her face.
“My father started the fraud. Ryan expanded it. Grady protected it.”
“And Daniel?”
“He found out.”
“Where is Daniel?”
“I swear I don’t know.”
I stared at her.
She reached across the table.
“Mark, my father has spent nine years looking for him.”
“Why hasn’t he found him?”
“Maybe he has.”
My phone buzzed.
A video message.
Unknown sender.
I opened it.
Daniel sat tied to a chair.
A man stood behind him.
His face stayed outside the frame.
Then Daniel looked directly into the camera.
“Mark, don’t give them the ledger.”
A hand struck him from behind.
Rachel gasped.
Then a voice spoke.
Old.
Calm.
Powerful.
“Bring me the book, Detective Morgan.”
May you like
Rachel went white.
“That’s my father.”
