Chapter 8 - MY MOTHER’S DEAL
“I never agreed to take Sophie from you,” my mother said.
“Your signature is on the page.”
“I signed blank loan documents. Darren added the custody language later.”
Amanda watched her with open disgust.
“That’s what you told yourself?”
Evelyn spun toward her.
“You were going to send my granddaughter away.”
“And you handed Darren the map to Ethan’s life.”
Ortiz separated them.
“This family can tear itself apart later. Right now, Rachel is in a trunk and a child is missing.”
My mother gave police the access code to her vehicle-tracking account. Years earlier, she had added Rachel’s car and phone to the family plan.
Rachel’s phone was moving south on Highway 9.
The signal stopped at an abandoned motel.
Officers reached it twelve minutes later and found Darren’s sedan behind the building.
Rachel was inside the trunk, alive but bleeding from the head.
Darren was gone.
When Rachel regained consciousness, she explained what happened.
She had discovered Amanda’s affair six weeks earlier after seeing her enter a downtown hotel with Darren. Rachel hired a private investigator and learned Darren had used different names to target wealthy widowers in three states.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I asked.
“I tried. Amanda told me you’d think I was jealous because our relationship had been bad.”
“We could’ve handled bad.”
“I needed proof.”
Rachel had come to the wedding with a flash drive containing surveillance photographs. Darren caught her before she could give it to me.
Ortiz opened the drive.
Most images showed Amanda and Darren.
One showed Claire watching them from across the street.
Another showed Darren meeting with the attorney who managed Sophie’s trust.
The attorney’s name was Martin Hale.
He had been my father’s closest friend.
He had also prepared the postnuptial papers Amanda expected me to sign.
Ortiz called Hale’s office.
Empty.
His home.
Empty.
Then my phone rang from an unknown number.
“Mr. Cole?” a frightened man whispered.
It was Martin Hale.
“I made a terrible mistake.”
“Where are you?”
“At Saint Matthew’s Hospital. Darren shot me.”
Ortiz put the call on speaker.
“Tell us where Sophie is,” she said.
“I don’t know. But I know what Emily found. Darren isn’t after ten million dollars.”
“What is he after?”
Hale began coughing.
“Your father hid one hundred and eighty million dollars in company shares. Emily found the ownership certificates.”
My mother stared at him through the phone.
“That’s impossible.”
Hale forced out three final words:
May you like
“Ask Claire why.”
Then the line went dead.
