Chapter 9 - Rebecca’s Last Search
The cassette began with static.
Then Edmund Ashford’s voice.
Older.
Impatient.
You were paid to move the boy, not develop a conscience.
Thomas Nolan answered:
The mother is still looking.
Then make sure she looks in the wrong place.
Daniel closed his eyes.
The recording was dated four years earlier.
Rebecca had still been alive.
Thomas continued:
Victor says she found Briar Glen.
Edmund cursed.
Then:
Move Caleb to Pike. Destroy Mercer’s remaining files. Rebecca gets nothing.
Daniel stopped the tape.
He could not breathe.
Rebecca had been closer than he ever knew.
Why had she not told him?
Grace handed Daniel another item from Thomas’s box.
Rebecca’s letter.
Addressed to Daniel.
Never delivered.
Daniel,
I know you think grief is making me irrational, but Caleb is alive. I have seen payment records. I found a school in Briar Glen. Victor knows more than he admits. Your father is terrified of something I discovered in North Harbor.
Daniel’s eyes blurred.
Please do not confront them yet. If I am right, they have already manufactured evidence once. We need copies outside Ashford Rail.
Daniel stopped.
Rebecca had understood the game years before he did.
Evidence first.
Confrontation later.
Daniel had done exactly the opposite when he punched Victor.
He read on.
If anything happens to me, do not let them convince you I imagined this.
Daniel’s heart seized.
Rebecca died from pancreatic cancer.
Documented.
Real.
No conspiracy caused it.
But Daniel suddenly understood another cruelty.
During her final illness, Victor had repeatedly told him Rebecca was becoming confused because of medication.
Edmund had called her obsession unhealthy.
Daniel had believed them.
Not entirely.
But enough.
He had failed her.
He went upstairs and found the box containing Rebecca’s hospice journals.
One entry:
Daniel asked me to stop talking about Caleb today. I saw how tired he is. I stopped because I love him, not because I am wrong.
Daniel cried alone.
The next morning he told Caleb.
Not every detail.
Only the truth that mattered.
“Your mother never stopped looking.”
Caleb stared.
“Why didn’t she find me?”
“People moved you.”
“Did you stop looking?”
Daniel could lie.
He did not.
“Yes.”
Caleb’s face closed.
Daniel continued.
“I believed the death certificate.”
“You believed them.”
“Yes.”
“You didn’t believe Mom.”
Daniel swallowed.
“Not enough.”
Caleb stood.
“I knew it.”
“Caleb—”
“You gave up.”
Daniel did not defend himself.
That was the hardest thing he had done.
Caleb ran outside.
Sophie followed.
Daniel stayed seated.
Jonathan had told him responsibility without excuses would feel unbearable at first.
It did.
Two hours later Sophie returned.
“He’s at the old carriage house.”
Daniel found Caleb sitting on the floor of Edmund’s private carriage, now preserved behind the estate.
The boy held the brass token.
“My grandfather sat here?”
“Yes.”
“He knew where I was?”
“Yes.”
Caleb’s voice shook.
“And you didn’t.”
“No.”
“I don’t know who to hate.”
Daniel sat several feet away.
“You don’t have to choose.”
Caleb looked at him.
“I hate you a little.”
Daniel nodded.
“I understand.”
“You’re not mad?”
“No.”
“I wanted you to be.”
“Why?”
“So I could leave.”
Daniel’s chest tightened.
“You can be angry and still stay.”
Caleb stared at the token.
For the first time, he leaned slightly toward Daniel.
Not touching.
But closer.
Then Daniel’s phone rang.
Elena.
Victor had vanished.
His passport was still flagged, his accounts monitored, but he had failed to appear for a scheduled interview.
More importantly, investigators found evidence that someone had accessed the Lake Wren cabin the previous night.
Gordon Pike was missing too.
Victor was no longer merely defending himself.
May you like
He was running.
And whatever remained at Lake Wren was important enough to make two conspirators disappear at once.
