Chapter 9 - FIVE MILLION DOLLARS
Nathan denied it.
At first.
Then I sent him the photograph of the ledger.
Three minutes later, he called.
“Where are you?”
“Did you take five million dollars?”
Silence.
“Nathan.”
“It wasn’t payment.”
I laughed.
“What was it?”
“Trust funding.”
“For what?”
“My future.”
“With me?”
Another silence.
My hand tightened around the phone.
“You accepted five million dollars three weeks before you proposed.”
“I was twenty-six.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
“I had been raised for one purpose my entire life.”
“And apparently I was it.”
“No.”
“You knew Evelyn wanted us to have a daughter.”
His breathing stopped.
There.
That was the detail he hoped I hadn’t found.
“Nathan?”
“She wanted an heir.”
“To my father’s patents.”
“Yes.”
“To M-17.”
“Yes.”
“And you agreed.”
His voice broke.
“I agreed to meet you.”
I closed my eyes.
“What?”
“That’s all.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“I agreed to attend the scholarship dinner.”
“To sit beside you.”
“To introduce myself.”
“To make sure you liked me.”
My stomach turned.
“But after that…”
He swallowed.
“I kept seeing you because I wanted to.”
I said nothing.
“We were supposed to date six months.”
“You changed the timeline.”
“I delayed the proposal for almost two years.”
That was true.
Evelyn had apparently expected us to marry faster.
“Why?”
“Because every time I thought about proposing, I knew what the ring actually meant.”
My anger faltered.
Not forgiveness.
Never that easily.
But something more complicated.
“Then why did you eventually do it?”
“Because I loved you.”
“And the five million?”
“I never touched it.”
“Where is it?”
Nathan hesitated.
“In a trust account.”
“For Ava?”
His silence surprised me.
“Yes.”
I looked at Roman.
He had been listening.
His expression remained unreadable.
Nathan continued.
“I tried to build an exit.”
“From Evelyn?”
“Yes.”
“Then why did you access Ava’s file?”
“Because Mother called me thirteen minutes after she was born.”
“What did she say?”
Nathan’s voice became quiet.
“She said if M-17 confirmed, I had thirty minutes to get your signature.”
“And if you didn’t?”
“She would take Ava.”
My skin chilled.
“You believed her?”
“I know her.”
“You could have told me.”
“I was afraid.”
“So you staged an affair?”
“Vanessa was supposed to help convince you the marriage was over.”
“So I would sign.”
“Yes.”
“How noble.”
“I never said it was.”
For the first time, Nathan didn’t defend himself.
That made it harder to hate him cleanly.
Roman finally spoke.
“Where is Evelyn?”
Nathan went silent.
Roman stepped closer to the phone.
“You want Claire to believe you were protecting her?”
“Tell us where Evelyn is.”
Nathan whispered,
“I can’t.”
“Then you were protecting yourself.”
The call ended.
I looked at the red ledger.
The proof was devastating.
But it wasn’t enough.
Entries could be called forged.
Photos could be disputed.
We needed original medical records.
My father had them.
If he was still alive.
Then Father Reyes noticed something inside the ledger binding.
A tiny key.
Brass.
Stamped:
317
Roman recognized it.
“Union Station.”
“What?”
“Old storage lockers.”
We drove there after midnight.
Locker 317 contained no records.
Only a cassette recorder.
One tape.
Label:
ANNA BENNETT - IF CLAIRE FINDS THIS
My hands went numb.
My mother had been dead for nine years.
I hadn’t heard her voice since I was sixteen.
Roman found an old cassette player at a twenty-four-hour pawn shop.
We sat in the minivan.
I pressed play.
Static.
Then my mother.
“Claire.”
I began crying instantly.
“If you’re hearing this, I didn’t manage to tell you myself.”
Her voice was weak.
“My illness was not natural.”
Roman looked at me.
I stopped breathing.
“I have spent years telling you the headaches were hereditary.”
“They were.”
“But not in the way you were told.”
“Evelyn’s treatment during my pregnancy altered more than she intended.”
“She created M-17 as much as she discovered it.”
My heart pounded.
“She needs your daughter because the next generation proves whether the alteration is stable.”
Ava.
Not a naturally occurring sequence.
An experimental alteration passed down through my mother.
Then Anna said something worse.
“Thomas thinks the trust can stop them.”
“I don’t.”
“He still believes institutions will protect evidence.”
“I have learned that institutions protect whoever owns the building.”
Roman’s jaw tightened.
My mother coughed.
“If you have a daughter, do not let Evelyn test her.”
“Not once.”
“Not one needle.”
“Not one scan she controls.”
Then came a long silence.
“I’m sorry, baby.”
“You deserved parents who told you the truth.”
The tape clicked.
I thought it was over.
Then my mother whispered one final thing.
“And if Thomas is still alive…”
My chest tightened.
“Tell him I knew why he left.”
“I just wish he had trusted me enough to come back.”
The tape ended.
I sat motionless.
Roman said nothing.
There was nothing useful to say.
Then his phone rang.
His expression changed immediately.
“What?”
He listened.
“Repeat that.”
He looked at me.
“We found Thomas.”
I stood so fast I nearly dropped the recorder.
“Where?”
Roman didn’t answer quickly enough.
“Where is my father?”
His voice lowered.
“Mercy General.”
I stared.
“Hospital?”
“Yes.”
“Is he alive?”
May you like
Roman looked me in the eyes.
“For now.”
