Chapter 3 - THE MAN IN THE GARAGE
Luke answered on the third ring.
"Daniel? I heard about your mom. Is she okay?"
Daniel walked away from Ethan before speaking.
"Where are you?"
"Home. Why?"
"Stay there."
"Daniel-"
"Stay there."
Detective Cole did not want Daniel going alone.
So he did not.
Cole drove behind him.
Luke opened his front door wearing sweatpants and a college sweatshirt. The concern on his face looked real.
Daniel hated that.
"Tell me why my wife told you Ethan was your son."
Luke went pale.
He did not deny it.
That was the first answer.
"Come inside."
"Answer me first."
Luke looked past Daniel and saw Cole beside her unmarked car.
"She told you."
"My eight-year-old told me."
Luke closed his eyes.
"Damn it."
Daniel stepped forward.
"Did you sleep with my wife?"
"No."
"Do not lie to me today."
"I'm not."
Luke walked into the house and returned with a white envelope.
Inside was a paternity report.
Daniel's hands shook as he read it.
LUKE MERCER - EXCLUDED AS BIOLOGICAL FATHER.
"She tested you?"
"Six weeks ago."
"Why?"
Luke gave a bitter laugh.
"Because three months ago she showed up here crying and said you were dangerous. She said she'd made a mistake years ago and that Ethan might be mine."
Daniel's jaw tightened.
"And you believed her?"
"For about forty-eight hours."
"Did you give her money?"
Luke looked away.
That was the second answer.
"How much?"
"Thirty thousand."
Daniel stared.
"For what?"
"An apartment. Attorney fees. She said she needed to leave you safely."
Cole stepped closer.
"Do you have records?"
"Everything."
Luke unlocked his phone and showed them transfers, messages, and photographs Olivia had sent of bruises.
Daniel recognized one immediately.
It was a bruise on Olivia's upper arm from when she had walked into the open pantry door while carrying groceries.
She had laughed about it that night.
Now she had captioned it:
HE DID THIS.
Daniel felt something inside him harden.
Luke kept scrolling.
"When the paternity test came back, I confronted her. She admitted Ethan wasn't mine. Said she panicked."
"And you kept helping her?"
"No. I cut her off."
Luke hesitated.
"But she asked me for one last favor."
Daniel waited.
"She wanted me to bring you some papers at work and get you to sign them without reading everything."
"What papers?"
Luke opened a kitchen drawer.
He pulled out copies.
Daniel saw his own name.
Beneficiary designation.
Insurance authorization.
Three million dollars.
His eyes lifted slowly.
Luke whispered, "I never gave them to you."
Cole took the documents.
Daniel looked at the signature line.
Someone had already practiced his signature in pencil beneath it.
May you like
Three times.
