Chapter 5 - SOMEONE CAME FOR THE FILE
I dropped to the floor.
Glass exploded across my desk.
“Mommy!”
Ethan screamed upstairs.
I crawled toward the wall and grabbed my phone.
“There’s someone inside my house.”
A dark figure climbed through the broken window.
I grabbed the first thing I could reach.
A brass lamp.
“Stay back!”
The intruder lunged toward my desk.
Not toward me.
Toward the blue folder.
I swung.
The lamp struck his shoulder.
He cursed.
Male voice.
He grabbed the folder.
I grabbed the other side.
“Let go!”
He shoved me against the bookshelf.
Pain shot through my back.
Then the alarm screamed.
The intruder froze.
Red lights flashed around the property.
I had triggered the silent panic button beneath the desk.
The man dropped the folder and ran.
I chased him to the broken window.
He jumped out.
A black SUV waited at the curb.
The vehicle accelerated before I could see the plate.
“Mommy!”
Ethan ran down the hallway.
I grabbed him.
“I’m okay.”
He was crying.
“You have blood.”
I touched my forehead.
A small cut.
“I’m okay, baby.”
Police arrived minutes later.
They photographed the window.
The desk.
The muddy footprints.
An officer picked up the blue folder with gloves.
“This what he wanted?”
“Yes.”
“What’s in it?”
I hesitated.
“Information about my son’s father.”
The officer looked at me.
“Your husband?”
“His biological father.”
“Where is he?”
“Missing.”
That got his attention.
“For how long?”
“Almost five years.”
An hour later, Sarah arrived.
She took one look at the scene.
“This isn’t a divorce anymore.”
“No.”
I stared at the shattered window.
“This is something else.”
She opened the folder carefully.
“Could Richard have sent him?”
“Yes.”
“Could Vivian?”
“Yes.”
Sarah read the DNA report.
Her expression tightened.
“Why is Vivian listed in the note?”
“I don’t know.”
She turned another page.
Then stopped.
“Amanda.”
“What?”
She held up a photocopy.
A financial transfer.
Five years ago.
Three days before Daniel disappeared.
$250,000.
From Vivian Whitman’s private investment account.
To a company called North Harbor Consulting.
Sarah looked at me.
“Do you recognize that company?”
“No.”
She typed the name into her laptop.
Seconds later, she went still.
“What?”
She turned the screen.
North Harbor Consulting had been dissolved four years ago.
Its registered owner?
Brooke Holloway.
Richard’s mistress.
I felt the room tilt.
“Brooke knew Daniel?”
May you like
Sarah stared at me.
“I think Brooke knew all of you long before you ever knew her.”
