Chapter 12 - THE PEOPLE WHO HELP MONSTERS
Laura Kent’s daughter was twenty-three.
Megan.
Graduate student.
Missing for six days.
Laura had told colleagues Megan was traveling with friends.
She wasn’t.
Nathan had taken her.
Or someone working for him had.
Suddenly Laura’s betrayal looked different.
Not harmless.
Not forgiven.
But understandable.
Monsters rarely build empires alone.
They build them out of frightened people.
Caldwell.
Dr. Larkin.
Gavin.
Laura.
Some were greedy.
Some were weak.
Some were trapped.
Nathan understood exactly which lever to pull on each person.
Sloan found Laura through a toll camera.
She was driving north.
Not fleeing.
Following instructions.
The FBI joined the search for Megan.
At the same time, investigators raided Dr. Larkin’s vacation home.
He was gone.
But his basement contained something worse than financial records.
Files.
Dozens.
Patients connected to wealthy estates.
Competency evaluations.
Guardianship recommendations.
Conservatorship referrals.
Some legitimate.
Many questionable.
The Alder Group appeared in correspondence.
Sarah had been right.
Nathan’s scheme was part of a larger system.
But Nathan had become careless.
He had used that system too many times.
Names repeated.
Accounts repeated.
Eventually patterns emerge.
By the fourth day, three former patients came forward.
Then six.
Then eleven.
Families who had lost companies.
Homes.
Trusts.
One man had spent two years in a facility after challenging his business partner.
A widow had been declared incompetent after refusing to sell inherited land.
An heiress lost control of a foundation following a psychiatric evaluation by Larkin.
Nathan had not personally targeted all of them.
But Northstar had profited.
The story became national.
I hated that.
Not because of the company.
Because Eli’s face appeared in coverage despite our efforts.
Five years old.
Turned into a symbol.
Claire turned off every television in the residence.
“No news around him.”
Elizabeth agreed.
Instead they built a fort in the living room.
For three hours, Eli was not an heir.
Not evidence.
Not a custody subject.
He was a child under blankets eating peanut-butter crackers.
I joined them after court.
Eli crawled into my lap.
“Are the bad people gone?”
“Not yet.”
“Will they be?”
“Yes.”
I wanted that answer to be true.
Then he asked,
“Was Uncle Nathan bad when Mommy was here?”
I froze.
Claire looked at me.
Children know where the wounds are even when they do not understand them.
“Yes.”
I said it quietly.
“I think he was.”
“Did Mommy know?”
“Yes.”
Eli thought.
“Then Mommy was brave.”
I could not speak.
That night, Elizabeth showed me the final part of Emily’s trust amendment.
One clause allowed the trust protector to appoint a successor.
If Elizabeth died, disappeared, or became incapacitated, control would pass to someone she designated.
She had already designated a successor.
Claire Bennett.
I stared at her.
“You made Claire trust protector?”
“Emily did.”
“What?”
“Emily chose her.”
“Before she died?”
“Yes.”
“Claire doesn’t know?”
“No.”
I almost laughed.
“Apparently nobody in this family believes in telling people anything.”
Elizabeth accepted the criticism.
“Fair.”
“Why Claire?”
“Because she has no financial interest in Eli’s inheritance.”
“Because Sarah exposed the scheme.”
“And because Emily believed Claire would run away from money before she ever ran toward it.”
That sounded like Emily.
But it also created danger.
If Nathan discovered Elizabeth could transfer control to Claire, Claire would become a target.
Again.
I told Michael to prepare additional security.
Too late.
At 7:12 the next morning, Claire left the secure residence for a court-approved meeting with investigators.
Her vehicle reached an intersection three miles away.
A delivery truck blocked the road.
A black SUV pulled behind her.
Security exited.
Gunfire struck the pavement.
Not the vehicle.
Warning shots.
The guards drew weapons.
The SUV fled.
Claire was unharmed.
Inside the delivery truck, police found a phone.
It rang.
I answered from the command center.
Nathan.
“Hello, Adrian.”
My brother’s voice was calm.
“You want this to end?”
“Come home.”
He laughed.
“That house was never home for me.”
“What do you want?”
“The audit stopped.”
“No.”
“Elizabeth removed as protector.”
“No.”
“Claire gone.”
My blood chilled.
“Stay away from her.”
“There you are again.”
“That famous temper.”
“Where is Megan?”
A pause.
“Alive.”
“Prove it.”
A video arrived.
Megan sitting in a room.
Scared.
Alive.
Nathan returned.
“You have twenty-four hours.”
“For what?”
“To announce publicly that you forged Emily’s recording.”
“That will never happen.”
“Then Laura loses her daughter.”
The line ended.
I stared at the phone.
Sloan said,
“We do not negotiate by destroying the case.”
“I know.”
“But?”
I looked at her.
“But he thinks I’ll choose justice over Megan because she isn’t my child.”
“What will you choose?”
“Neither.”
Nathan had taught me something.
He believed everyone had one pressure point.
One person.
One secret.
One fear.
He made one mistake.
He believed the rest of us played by his rules.
We didn’t.
Laura contacted us that afternoon.
She had stopped following Nathan’s instructions.
She gave the FBI everything.
Every message.
Every location.
Every file she had created.
Then she told us where Nathan had ordered her to go next.
An abandoned Cole Development property near Lake Mercer.
My father’s old hunting lodge.
The place where Nathan and I spent summers as boys.
Police searched it.
Megan was not there.
But in the basement they found ropes.
Food.
A mattress.
And photographs of every person Nathan considered dangerous.
Me.
Claire.
Sarah.
Elizabeth.
Sloan.
Michael.
Even Eli.
One photograph had a red X across the face.
Peter Caldwell.
Another had a handwritten note.
GAVIN KNOWS WHERE SHE IS.
Megan.
Gavin Mercer knew where Nathan was holding Laura’s daughter.
May you like
And for the first time, we had a reason to believe Gavin might help us.
If we could find him before Nathan did.
