Chapter 5 - The Man Who Emptied My Bank Account
Adrien reached the door in two strides.
Locked.
One of his security men slammed his shoulder against it.
Nothing.
"Back."
Adrien kicked beside the latch.
The frame cracked.
Another kick opened it.
The hallway was empty.
But a phone lay on the carpet.
Adrien picked it up.
A message glowed across the screen.
YOU SHOULD HAVE LISTENED TO ELENA.
Then footsteps sounded downstairs.
Security moved.
I stayed with Luca.
Five minutes later, they returned with Adrien's longtime estate manager, Charles Dane.
Charles was sixty.
Gray-haired.
Polite.
The kind of man who remembered birthdays and knew which wine went with dinner.
Adrien looked devastated.
"How long?"
Charles said nothing.
"How long have you been helping them?"
"I wasn't."
"The phone?"
"Not mine."
Security checked.
No fingerprints except Charles's.
He had picked it up, he claimed.
Then cameras showed someone wearing Charles's jacket entering the nursery hallway.
But the face was hidden.
Another setup.
Rachel called again.
This time she gave us a location.
A roadside motel in Connecticut.
Federal agents went first.
We followed hours later.
I had imagined seeing my sister again thousands of times.
Never like this.
Rachel opened the motel door.
She looked older.
Thinner.
A scar crossed her eyebrow.
Exactly like the photograph.
I slapped her.
Then hugged her so hard we both fell against the door.
"You idiot."
"I know."
"I hate you."
"I know."
"I missed you."
She broke.
"So did I."
We cried until there was nothing graceful left about either of us.
Then she saw Luca.
Her expression changed.
"He's beautiful."
"He looks like Grace."
"A little."
That nearly broke me again.
Rachel had documents.
Enough to expose the fertility network.
Tyler had helped conceal transactions after discovering irregularities at his accounting firm.
At first, he had been frightened.
Then someone paid him.
After Grace died, he panicked.
He stole our savings because he planned to disappear.
"Did he ever love me?" I asked.
Rachel looked miserable.
"Yes."
That answer hurt more.
"People can love someone and still be cowards."
Adrien stood near the window.
"Who's above Tyler?"
Rachel looked at him.
"I don't know."
"You said someone in my house."
"Elena believed so."
"Who?"
"She never told me."
Then the motel door opened.
Tyler walked in.
I froze.
He raised both hands.
"No weapon."
Adrien moved toward him.
I stepped between them.
"No."
Adrien stopped.
Tyler looked terrible.
"Emma."
"Don't."
"I need to explain."
"Four years together and you left by text."
"I was scared."
"Our daughter died."
"I know."
"You emptied our account."
"I thought they were coming after me."
"So you stole from me first?"
His face crumpled.
"I made every wrong choice."
"Yes."
He looked at Luca.
"That's him?"
"Don't look at him."
"I'm sorry."
"You don't get to be sorry near a baby after abandoning me beside our daughter's grave."
Silence.
Tyler handed Rachel a memory card.
"The original records."
Rachel stared.
"Where did you get this?"
"Elena gave it to me."
Adrien stepped forward.
"When?"
"The day before she went into labor."
"Why would my wife trust you?"
"She didn't."
Tyler swallowed.
"She threatened me."
That sounded more believable.
"She said if anything happened to her, I had forty-eight hours to deliver the card to Rachel."
"You didn't."
"I panicked."
"Again," I said.
Tyler looked at me.
"Yes."
The card contained names.
Doctors.
Administrators.
Accountants.
Clients.
And one person listed only by initials.
C.D.
Adrien immediately thought of Charles Dane.
But Rachel shook her head.
"Too obvious."
Then we found another file.
Payments made to C.D. for eleven years.
The first payment predated Charles working for Adrien.
"It isn't him," I said.
Adrien stared at the screen.
"Then who?"
Tyler answered.
"I know."
Everyone turned.
"Celia DeMarco."
Adrien went pale.
"Elena's mother."
The betrayal changed everything.
Celia had helped establish the private clinic decades earlier.
She had concealed illegal record manipulation to protect the family's reputation.
Not violence.
Not some dramatic criminal empire.
Money.
Shame.
Control.
The ordinary things that ruined extraordinary numbers of lives.
"Did she know Rachel was alive?" I asked.
Tyler nodded.
"Yes."
Adrien looked murderous.
I touched his arm.
"Remember Elena."
His jaw tightened.
"Government buildings."
"Exactly."
For half a second, his mouth almost smiled.
Then Rachel's laptop beeped.
Someone was remotely accessing the files.
She unplugged it.
Too late.
A message appeared.
RETURN LUCA TO THE ESTATE.
Adrien stared.
Another line appeared.
ELENA LEFT SOMETHING WITH HIM THAT BELONGS TO ME.
I looked down at the baby.
"What could Luca possibly have?"
Rachel's eyes moved toward his blanket.
Then toward the tiny hospital bracelet.
"No," she whispered.
She carefully removed the paper insert inside the bracelet.
Behind it was something thinner than paper.
A micro-storage chip.
Adrien stared.
"Elena hid the evidence on our son."
Rachel inserted it into an offline reader.
One video file appeared.
Before she could open it, the motel lights died.
A vehicle stopped outside.
Then someone knocked three times.
Tyler went white.
"I know that knock."
"Who?" I whispered.
He looked at Adrien.
May you like
"Your mother-in-law."
And the door handle began to turn.
