Chapter 6 - What June Knew
Police reached June's house in nine minutes.
I arrived in eleven.
The front door was broken.
A chair lay overturned.
Cereal covered the kitchen floor.
"Noah!"
An officer stopped me.
Then I heard him.
"Mommy!"
He ran from the hallway.
I grabbed him.
June was found in the basement.
Alive.
Her hands were tied.
The intruder was gone.
Noah said a man wearing a cap entered.
June told him to hide.
She fought the man long enough for Noah to escape into a closet.
The accusation against June had been bait.
Voss had given investigators her name knowing someone would repeat it.
Why?
Because he wanted June exposed.
June possessed something.
A recording.
My mother's final recording.
She had kept it seven years.
I wanted to hate her.
Instead, I listened.
My mother's face appeared on the television.
She looked tired.
"Emily, if you're seeing this, something went wrong."
I began crying before she finished the first sentence.
Margaret explained everything.
Voss.
The fraud network.
Gideon.
She confirmed Gideon had initially helped her gather evidence.
She also said something I didn't expect.
"Gideon is not innocent. But he isn't Charles."
My mother knew he had done illegal things.
She also believed he could still choose differently.
Then she explained my trust.
It wasn't merely money.
It was protection.
The financial records inside it were designed to become accessible only when I was old enough, established enough, and legally independent enough that Voss couldn't easily control me.
My mother had guessed that Voss might wait.
She hadn't guessed he would send Gideon into my life.
The final part hurt most.
"June, if I die, don't tell Emily until she is in danger. Let her live first."
June paused the recording.
"I kept my promise."
"For too long."
"Yes."
We cried together.
I didn't forgive her instantly.
But I understood.
Voss's empire began collapsing.
Federal agents arrested eleven people in three states.
Banks froze accounts.
Properties were seized.
The insurance policies were voided.
My forged debts were flagged as fraud.
Gideon cooperated fully.
He gave investigators everything.
That didn't repair our marriage.
When I visited him in the hospital, he looked smaller.
"I'm sorry."
"I know."
"I loved you."
"Maybe."
His eyes filled.
"That's worse, Gideon."
He looked away.
"If you loved me and still did this, then love wasn't enough."
He nodded.
"What happens now?"
"We divorce."
He closed his eyes.
"And Noah?"
"You'll have to earn whatever relationship the court allows."
He didn't fight.
Celeste came to see me two days later.
She didn't ask forgiveness.
That mattered.
"I'll testify," she said.
"You should."
"I'll return every dollar I can."
"You should."
She nodded.
Then started to leave.
"Cel."
She stopped.
"I don't know if I'll ever forgive you."
"I know."
"But I don't want you dead."
She began crying.
For now, that was enough.
My thirty-fifth birthday arrived.
At Commonwealth Federal, Rebecca sat beside me.
My father sat on the other side.
June waited outside with Noah.
The trust transferred legally.
$2.7 million.
But the money mattered less than the records.
Those records completed the federal case.
Charles Voss was charged with conspiracy, fraud, identity theft, extortion, kidnapping, and crimes connected to my mother's death.
The prosecutor expected additional charges.
I thought the nightmare was ending.
Then Marcus called.
"Emily, we found something in Voss's files."
"What?"
"A scheduled payment."
"To whom?"
"We don't know."
The recipient was identified only by initials.
G.H.
Gideon Hale?
"No," Marcus said.
"Gideon's middle name is Andrew."
The payment was scheduled for the day after my birthday.
Amount:
$500,000.
Purpose:
MERCER FINALIZATION.
My stomach tightened.
"Who is G.H.?"
"We're working on it."
That evening, my father came over.
I showed him.
He stared at the initials.
His face drained of color.
"What?"
He didn't answer.
"Dad."
"There was another person."
"Who?"
"Your mother's first attorney."
"I thought that was Voss."
"No. Before Voss."
He looked at me.
"Gerald Huxley."
"Where is he?"
"Supposedly dead."
Of course.
Nothing in my life stayed buried.
Marcus searched.
Gerald Huxley had died twelve years earlier.
Car accident.
No body recovered from the fire.
Then Rebecca found a corporate filing from six months earlier.
A company registered in Nevada.
G.H. Advisory.
Its mailing address belonged to a private mailbox twenty minutes from my home.
Marcus obtained surveillance.
A man had collected mail there that morning.
The photograph arrived on my phone.
My father sat beside me when I opened it.
He made a sound I had never heard from him.
The man wasn't Gerald Huxley.
It was someone else.
Someone from an old photograph in my mother's basement.
I enlarged the image.
My father whispered:
"That's impossible."
"Who is he?"
He looked at me.
"Emily... that's your mother's brother."
I stared.
"My uncle?"
"He died before you were born."
May you like
Apparently, he hadn't.
And according to the timestamp, he was driving toward my house.
