Calling the police should have been simple.
It wasn’t.
Claire’s first instinct was the local department.
Daniel stopped her before she dialed.
“No.”
She looked at him.
“You just said call the police.”
“Not Millbrook.”
“Why?”
“Victor had people there.”
“Victor is dead.”
“Some of them aren’t.”
Marlene’s expression hardened.
“Names.”
Daniel looked exhausted.
“I don’t know who is still there.”
“Then who do we call?”
“State investigators.”
My mother spoke from beside me.
“Thomas tried.”
Daniel looked at her.
“When?”
“Before he died.”
“What happened?”
“They sent him back to local authorities.”
Daniel swore under his breath.
Claire pressed both hands onto the table.
“So our options are anonymous strangers or institutions everyone says are compromised.”
“No,” I said.
Everyone looked toward me.
“We document first.”
Daniel frowned.
“What?”
“Everything.”
The old me would have rushed toward action because movement felt like competence. Now I had learned enough to know that action without thought could become another form of chaos.
“We copy the messages, the documents, the photograph, the letters. We make backups somewhere nobody in either family controls.”
Claire nodded immediately.
“Yes.”
Marlene looked at Daniel.
“And you don’t touch anything.”
He flinched.
“Fine.”
Claire started photographing each page from Thomas’s letter.
I opened a secure cloud folder and uploaded the images as she sent them. Then I sent copies to a new email account neither Claire nor I had ever used.
“Why the extra account?” she asked.
“Because if someone knows our names, they may know our regular addresses.”
Daniel nodded despite himself.
“Good.”
Claire looked at me for a second longer than necessary.
Not admiration.
Something smaller.
Trust returning by millimeters.
That mattered more.
Marlene gathered Rebecca’s papers into piles.
My mother began writing down everything she remembered about Victor Shaw, Leonard Voss, Peter, and Thomas.
“Dates too,” I told her.
“I don’t remember exact dates.”
“Approximate is fine. Just mark what you know versus what you think.”
She nodded.
Daniel leaned against the wall.
“What about me?”
Claire did not look at him.
“Start with every time you met Voss.”
He sat.
“That will take a while.”
“Good.”
For almost an hour, nobody argued.
The work gave us structure.
Claire scanned.
Marlene sorted.
Daniel wrote.
Elaine dictated.
I uploaded files while feeding Luca a bottle against my chest.
Our son opened his eyes midway through and stared at me with the solemn concentration only newborns possess.
“You picked an interesting week to arrive,” I whispered.
Claire heard.
For the first time all day, she smiled.
It disappeared quickly when her phone rang.
Unknown number.
Not the one texting us.
Everyone froze.
“Don’t answer,” Daniel said.
Claire stared at the screen.
“Maybe it’s them.”
“Then they can text.”
The call stopped.
A voicemail notification appeared.
Claire pressed play on speaker.
A man’s voice.
Older.
Measured.
“Claire Bennett, this is Dr. Leonard Voss. I believe we should speak before you make decisions based on documents you do not understand.”
No one moved.
The message continued.
“There are people using your mother’s death to reopen matters that were settled a long time ago. You recently gave birth. You should be protecting your health and your child rather than allowing strangers to frighten you.”
Claire’s face emptied.
The message ended with a callback number.
Marlene whispered, “How does he know?”
Daniel looked ill.
“About Luca?”
“Yes.”
“Birth announcements?”
“We didn’t make one publicly,” I said.
Claire looked toward me.
“We texted family.”
“Did anyone post photos?”
Marlene pulled out her phone.
“I did.”
Claire stared.
“Where?”
“Facebook.”
“Public?”
Marlene’s expression changed.
“I don’t know.”
Daniel swore.
“It doesn’t matter. Voss has money. Finding out somebody had a baby isn’t difficult.”
That was true.
It still felt invasive.
Claire played the message again.
I listened carefully.
“What?”
She looked at me.
“He said strangers.”
Daniel frowned.
“So?”
“We never told him anonymous people contacted us.”
Everyone went quiet.
Marlene whispered, “Then he knows who they are.”
My phone vibrated.
The anonymous sender had written again.
DO NOT CALL VOSS BACK.
Claire typed from her phone this time.
HE JUST CALLED ME.
The response came immediately.
WE KNOW.
Daniel stood.
“No.”
Claire looked at him.
“What?”
“If they know he called within seconds, someone is watching either him or us.”
Marlene went to the window.
Daniel snapped, “Don’t stand there.”
She stepped aside.
I looked toward my own front window instinctively.
My mother noticed.
“Evan.”
“We’re fine.”
“Are we?”
I carried Luca away from the glass.
Claire’s voice came through the phone.
“You should close the blinds.”
“I will.”
“Now.”
I did.
The role reversal was not lost on me.
For once, Claire was telling me something and I simply did it.
No argument.
No explanation.
When I returned, Daniel was reading his notes.
“I met Voss at least six times.”
Claire turned.
“You said he showed you the paternity result.”
“That was one.”
“What were the others?”
“He handled paperwork after Rebecca died.”
“Why him?”
“He said the hospital’s lawyers were concerned.”
“About what?”
“Liability.”
“For her accident?”
“No. For your birth records.”
Claire stared.
“Why were hospital lawyers worried about my birth records four years later?”
Daniel looked down.
“I didn’t ask.”
“Of course you didn’t.”
He accepted it.
“Who signed my guardianship documents?”
“A judge named Harold Mercer.”
Marlene looked sharply at him.
“Victor’s golf partner.”
“Yes.”
“Who represented you?”
“Paul Renner.”
Elaine whispered, “Thomas knew Renner.”
Daniel nodded.
“Everyone knew Renner.”
I added the names to the file.
Harold Mercer.
Paul Renner.
Leonard Voss.
Victor Shaw.
Then another name surfaced.
Daniel hesitated before writing it.
Claire noticed.
“Who?”
“Samuel Pike.”
Marlene looked blank.
“Who was that?”
“Detective assigned to Rebecca’s accident.”
Claire leaned forward.
“What did he find?”
“Nothing.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“He closed the case in forty-eight hours.”
“Why?”
“Single-car collision. Wet road. No witnesses.”
“Was she drinking?”
“No.”
“Drugs?”
“No.”
“Mechanical failure?”
“Not according to Pike.”
“Did Thomas disagree?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Daniel looked at Elaine.
She answered.
“Brake line.”
Claire’s face tightened.
“What about it?”
“Thomas said it had been cut.”
“Did he see the car?”
“Yes.”
Daniel looked surprised.
“How?”
Elaine rubbed her temple.
“He bribed someone at the impound lot.”
Daniel gave a humorless laugh.
“That sounds like Thomas.”
“What happened to the car?” I asked.
“Destroyed.”
“When?”
“Three days after the accident.”
Daniel stared.
“That fast?”
“Yes.”
He shook his head.
“That isn’t normal.”
My phone vibrated again.
This time the anonymous sender sent an address.
Not a message.
An address.
Claire searched it.
“Private medical office.”
Daniel leaned closer.
“Whose?”
She read the result.
“Dr. Leonard Voss.”
My stomach tightened.
Below the address came another message.
HE IS THERE NOW.
Then:
ANNA IS GOING TO CONFRONT HIM.
Claire stood.
“No.”
Another message.
WE CANNOT STOP HER.
Daniel grabbed his keys.
“I can.”
Claire turned on him.
“You’re not going alone.”
“I’m not asking permission.”
“Then I’m coming.”
“No.”
Marlene said it at the same time I did.
Claire glared toward the phone.
“I am not sitting here while my sister walks into that man’s office.”
“You had abdominal surgery four days ago.”
“Stop saying that like I forgot.”
“I’m saying it because your body doesn’t care about family secrets.”
Daniel looked at her.
“Evan’s right.”
Claire’s gaze snapped toward him.
“You don’t get a vote.”
“Fine.”
He grabbed his coat.
Marlene moved toward him.
“I’m coming.”
“No.”
“You think I’m staying here?”
Daniel looked at the woman he had lied to for decades.
Something passed between them.
“Okay.”
Claire shook her head.
“You two are not going without telling us what happens.”
“We’ll keep the call open,” Marlene said.
I looked down at Luca.
My instinct screamed to drive there too.
I hated staying.
That alone told me it was probably the right choice.
“Share location,” I said.
Daniel did.
Claire looked at me.
“You’re really staying?”
“Yes.”
Something in her face softened again.
“Thank you.”
Two words.
No praise.
No absolution.
Yet they meant more than any argument I had ever won.
Daniel and Marlene left.
Claire remained on video.
My mother made coffee neither of us drank.
Twenty-three minutes later, Marlene whispered through the phone.
“We’re here.”
I heard a car door close.
Claire gripped the edge of the table.
“Do you see Anna?”
“No.”
Daniel’s voice came faintly.
“There’s a black sedan.”
My mother went still.
“What?”
I looked at her.
“What’s wrong?”
“Thomas used to talk about a black sedan.”
“What kind?”
“I don’t know.”
Marlene whispered, “Someone’s getting out.”
Claire stood.
“Who?”
Silence.
“Marlene?”
Then Daniel said a name.
“Samuel Pike.”
The detective from Rebecca’s accident.
Claire stared at the screen.
“He’s alive?”
Apparently.
And he was walking into Leonard Voss’s office.
Thirty seconds later, the anonymous sender texted us again.
DO NOT LET PIKE LEAVE WITH ANNA.
Claire went white.
“What does that mean?”
Before anyone could answer, shouting exploded through Marlene’s open phone line.
A woman screamed.
Daniel shouted something.
Then the call went dead.
Click here to continue reading: PART 11: The Woman Daniel Pulled From Voss’s Office Looked Like Claire, but She Carried Proof Their Mother Had Planned for This Day
Four Hours After Surgery, One Ordinary Question Made My Wife Look at Me Like a Stranger
Part 10 of 28
