Chapter 10 - The Name Beside My Baby’s
The police allowed Samantha to speak with Elaine because the corporate fraud investigation now overlapped with the break-in.
I watched through glass.
Elaine was sixty-one.
She looked enough like my mother to make me uncomfortable.
Her first question was about Lily.
“Is the baby safe?”
Samantha didn’t answer.
“Why was her name in your pocket?”
Elaine laughed bitterly.
“That wasn’t a target list.”
“What was it?”
“A list of people Denise would destroy if she thought she was losing.”
My shoulders loosened slightly.
Then Elaine looked toward the observation glass.
“I know Evelyn is there.”
Mom entered.
For almost thirty years, the sisters had not seen each other.
Neither hugged.
Elaine cried first.
“I tried to tell Thomas.”
My father’s name broke whatever distance remained between them.
“What happened?” Evelyn asked.
Elaine told us that Frank Walker had been stealing from North Star long before Dad died.
My father discovered it.
He planned to remove Frank and report the fraud.
Denise discovered the plan.
But according to Elaine, Denise had not arranged Dad’s crash.
“Frank did.”
Mark went rigid.
Elaine continued.
“Denise covered it afterward.”
That explained the forged ownership documents and insurance records.
But not everything.
“Why did you disappear?” I asked.
“Because I signed the insurance consent.”
Evelyn recoiled.
“You forged my name?”
Elaine nodded through tears.
“Frank told me it was routine corporate coverage. I needed money. I thought I was helping with paperwork.”
“And after Thomas died?”
“I understood what I had helped create.”
She had threatened to go to police.
Denise paid her to disappear, then kept paying because silence was cheaper than exposure.
“What about Mark?”
Elaine looked at him.
“I found him years later. I thought the son might help undo what the father had done.”
“And did he?”
“No.”
Mark lowered his eyes.
“He fell in love with Rachel and became afraid of losing both sides.”
That sounded painfully accurate.
Then Elaine leaned toward me.
“Your husband is weak, Rachel. But he isn’t the person you should fear most.”
“Denise?”
“No.”
My stomach tightened.
“Then who?”
Elaine looked toward Tyler.
Tyler had been standing near the door.
His face changed.
Elaine whispered:
May you like
“Ask him why Frank Walker’s fingerprints weren’t on the steering wheel the night Thomas died.”
Tyler turned and ran.
