Chapter 14 - THE DAUGHTER WE NEVER KNEW
Hannah sat in our living room holding a folder.
“I’m thirty-one.”
Derek was fifty-one.
The math worked.
“My mother met him in college,” she explained.
“He knew about me.”
Mom looked shattered.
“He never told us.”
Hannah shook her head.
“He paid child support for a while. Then he disappeared.”
“Why are you here now?” I asked.
She handed me the folder.
“Because he contacted me last year.”
Inside were messages.
Derek had told Hannah he would soon inherit a valuable house.
He promised to give her fifty thousand dollars if she signed documents saying he had financially supported her for years.
“Why?”
“I think he wanted to show financial obligations.”
Samuel later explained that Derek had been building excuses for missing money.
Fake debts.
Fake repayments.
Anything that could make transferred funds look legitimate.
Hannah wiped her eyes.
“I refused.”
“Did Melissa know about you?”
“No.”
I leaned back.
Derek’s lies had layers inside layers.
Hannah looked toward Mom.
“I didn’t come for money.”
Mom reached across the table and took her hand.
“I know.”
Hannah started crying.
For once, the surprise my brother left behind wasn’t another enemy.
It was family he had abandoned.
Over the following months, the criminal cases moved forward.
Kane’s company collapsed under investigations.
The fraudulent deed was officially voided.
The house was restored cleanly to my name.
The lender’s lien was removed.
Mom’s stolen funds were partially recovered from frozen accounts.
Derek eventually accepted a plea agreement after prosecutors confronted him with the recordings.
Melissa accepted responsibility for her role.
Neither walked away untouched.
But Mom asked me for one thing.
“Don’t tell me their sentences like they’re scores.”
I understood.
She didn’t want revenge measured in years.
She wanted peace.
So when the sentencing dates arrived, I went without her.
Melissa stood before the judge and apologized.
Not the fake apology she had used after being caught.
A quieter one.
“I became cruel because cruelty made me feel powerful in a house that wasn’t mine.”
She looked toward me.
“That’s not an excuse.”
“No,” I said.
“It isn’t.”
Derek was different.
He blamed pressure.
Debt.
Marriage.
Failure.
Me.
Finally, the judge asked whether he wanted to say anything to Mom.
Derek looked at me.
“Tell her I’m sorry.”
I stared at him.
“You can write it yourself.”
His eyes filled with anger.
Even then, he wanted someone else to carry the burden.
The judge sentenced him.
When I walked outside the courthouse, I didn’t feel happy.
I felt finished.
At least, I thought I did.
Then my phone rang.
Mom.
I answered immediately.
“Mom?”
Her voice was shaking.
“Rachel, somebody is inside the house.”
My heart stopped.
“What?”
“I heard glass break downstairs.”
“Lock your door.”
“I did.”
“Call 911.”
“I already did.”
I ran toward my car.
“Stay on the phone.”
Then I heard a man’s voice through Mom’s phone.
From downstairs.
“Dorothy?”
Mom gasped.
I knew that voice.
May you like
Victor Kane had been released pending trial.
And he was inside our house.
