Chapter 8 - The Woman in the Yellow Coat
I confronted my mother the next morning.
She didn't deny the photograph.
“I met Victor.”
“Why?”
“To offer him one last chance.”
“To do what?”
“Confess.”
I laughed bitterly.
“You've been hiding for twelve years and suddenly believed Dad developed a conscience?”
“No.”
“Then what?”
“I needed him to lead me to Dominic's records.”
Rafael leaned against the wall.
“You used Victor.”
“Yes.”
“Did he know?”
“No.”
Laura looked at me.
“I placed a tracker in his briefcase.”
She gave us the coordinates.
A private storage facility in New Jersey.
Inside Victor's rented unit, we found no money.
We found something worse.
Boxes labeled with my name.
School records.
Tax documents.
Copies of my driver's license.
My signature practiced hundreds of times.
A complete identity-theft operation built by my own father.
Serena's boxes sat beside mine.
“He used both of us,” she whispered.
But mine went back further.
To age eighteen.
The year before Mom's “death.”
Rafael opened a metal case.
Passports.
One bore my photograph.
Different name.
June Carter.
My mother's maiden name.
Laura went pale.
“I didn't make that.”
“Then who did?”
No answer.
We found a laptop.
Its files revealed the truth.
Victor had prepared escape identities for everyone.
Himself.
Serena.
Me.
Not Laura.
“He planned to run,” Rafael said.
“With us?”
“Or using you.”
One folder was marked INSURANCE.
Inside were life-insurance policies.
Mine.
Serena's.
Huge policies.
Victor was beneficiary.
My stomach turned.
Then we found a recording.
Victor's voice.
Dominic's.
“If the Moretti marriage goes forward,” Dominic said, “we lose access to June's account.”
Victor replied, “Then Serena marries him.”
“And June?”
“She stays where she belongs.”
“Running your books?”
“Running my money.”
I closed my eyes.
Rafael shut off the recording.
His anger was terrifying because it was so quiet.
“I want him found.”
I touched his arm.
“Alive.”
His eyes met mine.
“Alive.”
That mattered.
Because Rafael could have promised revenge.
Instead he promised restraint.
For me.
We returned home after dark.
Serena went upstairs.
Mom stayed in the guest wing under guard.
I stood in the foyer where the broken vase had been.
A new table stood there.
No vase.
“You didn't replace it,” I said.
“I told you. I disliked it.”
I smiled.
Rafael approached.
“June.”
“Yes?”
“I need to tell you something.”
The seriousness in his voice erased my smile.
“What?”
He reached into his jacket.
Before he could remove whatever was inside, the lights went out.
Emergency lights flickered red.
Security alarms remained silent.
That was worse.
Rafael pulled me behind him.
A voice came through the dark foyer.
“Rafe.”
He froze.
Only someone who knew him well would call him that.
Footsteps approached.
A woman emerged beneath the emergency light wearing a yellow coat.
The same coat from the fundraiser.
But it wasn't my mother.
May you like
She looked directly at me.
Then she said, “June, Laura Callow isn't your biological mother...”
