Chapter 8 - SAMUEL HALE
Samuel Hale had been listed as dead since 2013.
A boating accident.
No body recovered.
Margaret attended his memorial.
I remembered because she wore black and complained afterward that the service was “too sentimental.”
Ramirez found a photograph of Samuel.
I recognized him immediately.
“That’s impossible.”
“What?”
“I’ve seen him.”
“When?”
“Two months ago.”
Ramirez leaned forward.
“Where?”
“At a grocery store in Vermont.”
I had taken Noah there for a weekend away.
An older man had stared at us near the parking lot.
I thought he was just being strange.
Then he approached.
“He asked if Noah was mine.”
“What did you say?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“He looked like he was going to cry.”
Ramirez’s eyes narrowed.
“What else?”
“He said, ‘Keep that boy away from Margaret.’”
My pulse jumped.
“Why didn’t I think about that?”
“Because you didn’t know he was Samuel Hale.”
Benjamin entered.
When he saw the photograph, he stopped cold.
“That’s Samuel.”
Ramirez turned.
“You knew he was alive?”
“No.”
“Did Charles?”
Benjamin hesitated too long.
I noticed.
“Benjamin.”
He sighed.
“Charles suspected Samuel survived.”
“Why hide?”
“Because Samuel believed Margaret tried to kill him.”
The room went silent.
I felt like every answer opened three new doors.
“Where would Samuel go?”
Benjamin looked toward the window.
“There was a cabin Rebecca’s family owned near Lake Champlain.”
Ramirez was already calling someone.
Thirty minutes later, state police were on their way.
They found the cabin.
Door open.
Blood on the porch.
Furniture overturned.
No Margaret.
No Samuel.
But inside, taped beneath a kitchen table, officers found a flash drive.
Benjamin and I watched the files on a laptop.
Samuel had recorded everything.
He had been investigating Margaret for years.
Money laundering.
Forgery.
Blackmail.
And something worse.
A video dated three weeks before Emily died.
Margaret stood in a parking garage with a man I recognized.
Victor Kane.
My mother’s longtime head of security.
Margaret handed him an envelope.
The audio was weak.
But one sentence was clear.
“She drives the silver SUV.”
Victor asked, “And the baby?”
Margaret answered without hesitation.
“The baby must survive.”
My blood ran cold.
Emily had driven the silver SUV.
But Noah had been home with me that morning.
Margaret never meant to kill Noah in the car crash.
She meant to kill Emily.
And keep Noah for herself.
Then another file opened automatically.
Samuel appeared on-screen.
“If Daniel is watching this, Margaret has probably found me.”
He took a breath.
“There’s something else you need to know.”
He lifted an old photograph.
Rebecca stood beside him.
May you like
The photo was dated only six months earlier.
My biological mother was alive.
