Chapter 12 - The Photograph
The photograph was real.
The interpretation wasn’t.
It showed Charles in 1999 beside a man lying motionless behind a freight warehouse.
Dad remembered immediately.
“Samuel Ortiz.”
A driver.
He had collapsed from a heart attack.
Charles performed CPR until paramedics arrived.
Samuel survived another twelve years.
Diane cropped the photograph to remove the paramedics.
Lucas eventually discovered that.
So why keep Diane’s existence from me?
Because by then, Lucas had gone deeper.
He knew Diane monitored our family.
He wanted to locate her before telling me.
He never got the chance.
I was furious with him.
Dead people don’t become saints.
Lucas loved me.
He also decided what I could handle.
I wished I could yell at him for it.
Instead, I sat beside his grave.
Lucy slept against my chest.
“You should have told me.”
Wind moved through the cemetery.
No answer.
“You idiot.”
Still nothing.
I cried anyway.
Then Samantha called.
“We found Diane.”
I stood.
“Where?”
“She isn’t hiding.”
“What?”
Diane Cross had checked into a luxury hotel in downtown Syracuse under her real name.
She wanted to surrender.
Too convenient.
Police arrested her.
She requested one person before speaking.
Me.
I refused initially.
Then changed my mind.
Not for her.
For Lucas.
Diane sat behind glass.
Older than the photographs.
Beautiful still.
Cold.
I recognized my own mouth.
“Why surrender?”
“Because Northstar is finished.”
“Thanks to you?”
“Thanks to Lucas.”
That surprised me.
“He was better than I expected.”
“You killed him.”
“No.”
“You ordered Martin.”
“No.”
“Then prove it.”
She slid a number across the table.
A cloud archive.
Lucas had created it.
Diane discovered it after his death but couldn’t access it.
She believed I could.
Password hint:
The first thing Victoria ever gave me.
I knew.
A terrible watercolor I painted Lucas during our first month dating.
A lighthouse.
Password:
LIGHTHOUSE.
The archive opened.
Lucas had recorded his final meeting with Martin.
At the rest stop.
Martin begged him.
Not threatened.
“Lucas, walk away.”
“No.”
“Diane knows.”
“I don’t care.”
“You should.”
“Tell her I’m taking everything to federal investigators tomorrow.”
Martin looked terrified.
Then:
“She’ll kill both of us.”
Lucas answered:
“Then help me stop her.”
The recording continued after Martin left.
Lucas returned to his SUV.
Another vehicle approached.
A woman exited.
Diane.
My mother.
She and Lucas argued.
Diane:
“You think marrying my daughter makes you untouchable?”
Lucas:
“No. Loving her makes me unwilling to stop.”
Diane stepped closer.
“You have no idea what Charles did.”
Lucas laughed.
“I know exactly what Charles did. That’s why Victoria will never sign the company back to him.”
Then Diane said something strange.
“She already did.”
Lucas froze.
“What?”
Diane held up a document.
My signature.
Forged.
Again.
But this forgery was dated two months before Lucas died.
Someone had already attempted transferring my future trust rights.
Lucas grabbed the document.
“Who gave you this?”
Diane smiled.
Then said one name.
“Samantha Vance.”
The video ended.
I slowly turned toward Lucas’s attorney.
May you like
The woman sitting beside me.
Samantha went completely still.
