Chapter 11 - David Vale
David did not go to prison.
The charges vanished.
Robert believed the Mercer family paid to bury them.
Then David disappeared completely.
That was why Robert never mentioned him.
When he later met Marjorie, he knew she had been involved with David.
He did not know I was David’s child until after we married.
Marjorie told him.
He chose to raise me anyway.
“So Jonathan was framed by David?”
Walter asked.
Robert shook his head.
“David wasn’t smart enough to build those records.”
Then Jonathan’s files provided the answer.
David had been recruited by Margaret Crane.
She needed someone who resembled Jonathan enough to pass casual identification.
David used Jonathan’s identity.
Signed documents.
Opened accounts.
Moved money.
But he did not understand the entire scheme.
When Jonathan uncovered it, David tried to confess.
Margaret threatened him.
Then David disappeared.
I whispered:
“Is he dead?”
Nobody knew.
Then a cassette labeled DAVID played.
My biological father’s voice.
Young.
Terrified.
“If Robert ever hears this, I’m sorry.”
Robert covered his mouth.
David continued.
“Margaret said she was protecting Rebecca. That’s how it started.”
Margaret had discovered Evelyn and Jonathan’s decision to hide Rebecca’s survival from Marjorie.
She despised the Mercer family for taking a baby from its mother.
She decided to build a parallel identity for Rebecca so the girl could one day reclaim Mercer assets.
Initially, that was the motive.
Restitution.
Then Margaret realized duplicate identities could move money invisibly.
Power corrupted the rescue mission.
David became her proxy.
Then David said:
“Marjorie’s pregnant.”
My heart stopped.
“I think the baby is mine.”
Robert closed his eyes.
“I want to tell her everything before Clara is born.”
He used my name.
Before I was born.
“Jonathan knows. He told me he’ll raise her if I disappear.”
Mom began crying.
Jonathan and David had made an agreement.
Jonathan would protect Marjorie and me.
David would help expose Margaret.
Then the recording ended with footsteps.
Margaret’s voice.
“So noble.”
David whispered:
“How did you get in?”
Then a sharp noise.
Tape ended.
No proof of murder.
But ominous.
Pike searched another box.
Found a signed relocation document.
David Vale entered a federal cooperation program under another name.
He may have survived.
Then I found a current address handwritten by Jonathan only five years earlier.
Port Angeles, Washington.
Name:
Daniel Voss.
Dad stared.
“I know that name.”
Who?
The property manager who collected the nominal one-dollar annual rent on our Seattle home.
The man my parents had met every year.
My biological father had been standing in their living room repeatedly under another name.
Mom whispered:
“Oh my God.”
And Dad realized something even worse.
Daniel Voss had attended every Thanksgiving for seven years.
As the “property representative.”
I remembered him.
Quiet man.
May you like
Always left before dessert.
He had watched me grow up from across the room.
