Chapter 3 - Six Witnesses and One Missing Man
Detective Beckett left the hospital before dawn.
By six in the morning, three officers were searching the river road where Jonah’s car had been found.
By seven, my mother was telling television reporters that my father’s arrest was the result of a tragic misunderstanding.
I watched her interview from my hospital bed.
Denise Hale stood on the courthouse steps in a pearl necklace and pale gray coat.
She looked devastated.
She had always been good at looking devastated when cameras were present.
“My husband loves both of his daughters.”
“Sadie was injured during a heated family argument.”
“There was no deliberate attack.”
The reporter asked about the brick.
Mom lowered her eyes.
“Robert picked it up because Wyatt Mercer had become aggressive.”
I nearly tore the IV out of my arm.
Wyatt muted the television.
“Don’t.”
“She’s lying.”
“I know.”
“She watched him hit me.”
“I know.”
“She smiled.”
Wyatt sat on the edge of the bed.
“And six people saw enough to make her story collapse.”
“Not everything.”
He understood.
The witnesses had seen Dad attack me.
They had not all heard the months of planning.
They had not been inside the house before we arrived.
They did not know what Melanie knew.
And Jonah was gone.
A soft knock interrupted us.
Carl Benson entered holding a baseball cap in both hands.
The electrician looked uncomfortable in a hospital.
“Hope I’m not bothering you.”
“You saved me.”
He shook his head.
“I made a phone call.”
“You refused to let my father scare you.”
“That part was easy.”
He sat down.
Then he handed Wyatt a small black memory card.
“My dash camera.”
“Police already copied it.”
“This is the second card.”
I frowned.
“Second?”
“I run front and cabin cameras.”
“Cabin camera caught audio.”
Wyatt immediately sat straighter.
“What audio?”
Carl looked at me.
“Your mother.”
My pulse rose.
He explained that when he parked in the driveway, his van window was partly open.
The cabin microphone recorded more than shouting.
It captured my mother saying, “If she still thinks she’s getting married after today, we finish it another way.”
It also captured Melanie answering, “I’m not going to jail because Dad can’t control himself.”
I closed my eye.
That sentence changed Melanie’s role.
She had known something was going to happen.
Maybe not the brick.
But something.
“Did you give this to Beckett?”
“Copy’s already with him.”
“Why bring me one?”
Carl looked embarrassed.
“Because your dad called my boss from jail.”
Wyatt’s expression hardened.
“What?”
“He told my boss I stole tools from the Hale house last month.”
“My boss knows it’s garbage.”
“But your father is already trying to wreck witnesses.”
I stared at the card.
“He can call people from jail?”
“Apparently he had someone make the call for him.”
Carl stood.
“I just thought you should know.”
After he left, Samuel arrived.
He had not slept.
Neither had Beckett, judging by the detective who entered behind him.
“Jonah’s vehicle was staged.”
Beckett said.
“No blood.”
“No evidence he entered the river.”
“Traffic camera?”
“Disabled at the nearest intersection.”
Wyatt swore.
“Who has the resources to do that?”
Beckett looked toward me.
“Your mother withdrew nine thousand eight hundred dollars yesterday morning.”
“That was before the attack.”
“Yes.”
“Cash?”
“Yes.”
“Do you think she paid someone?”
“We think the timing matters.”
Samuel placed a folder on the table.
“I may know why Jonah came back now.”
He showed me a newspaper clipping.
The interstate expansion project had finally received federal approval three weeks earlier.
The land value around it was about to increase dramatically.
“Theodore’s company owns the only privately controlled access corridor between the interstate site and the proposed logistics park.”
Wyatt leaned closer.
“That corridor is worth more than the rest of the land.”
Samuel nodded.
“Potentially much more.”
“How much?”
“If a developer needs it badly enough, the easement alone could sell for twenty million.”
My head hurt for reasons that had nothing to do with surgery.
“Who wants it?”
Samuel looked at Beckett.
The detective answered.
“Hale Ridge Development.”
I almost laughed.
“My father’s company?”
“It is registered to a holding company controlled by your mother.”
Wyatt stared.
“They created a company to buy land Sadie already owns.”
“More precisely, to acquire control before Sadie learned she owned it.”
Samuel opened another document.
“A developer offered Hale Ridge thirty-one million for future access rights.”
“When?”
“Four months ago.”
Everything aligned.
Four months earlier, my parents started pushing me to postpone the wedding.
Three months earlier, Dad researched the trust trigger.
Two months earlier, Melanie started aggressively pursuing Wyatt.
One month earlier, Mom told me that a woman who loved her family would step aside if her sister had a better chance at happiness.
Yesterday, Dad used a brick.
Beckett’s phone rang.
He stepped into the hallway.
Samuel lowered his voice.
“There is one more problem.”
“What?”
“The original will still matters.”
“You have a certified copy.”
“Robert’s attorneys will argue Theodore revoked it.”
“And Jonah can prove he didn’t.”
“If we find him.”
I looked at the small key Samuel had given me.
“Theodore’s proof.”
Samuel nodded.
“Do you recognize the key?”
“No.”
Wyatt picked it up.
There was a number stamped into the brass.
214.
“Safe-deposit box?”
Samuel said.
“That was my first thought.”
“But we checked every bank Theodore used.”
“No box 214.”
I turned the key over.
A faded red stripe ran along the edge.
Suddenly I remembered something.
When I was ten, Granddad took Melanie and me to an old train station he owned outside town.
The station had been converted into storage units.
Each unit had a brass key with a red stripe.
“Not a bank.”
I whispered.
Wyatt looked at me.
“What?”
“The old Hale freight depot.”
Samuel froze.
“That property was sold after Theodore died.”
“To who?”
Samuel checked his papers.
Then his face changed.
“Hale Ridge Development.”
My mother’s company.
Of course.
Beckett returned quickly.
“We have a location on Jonah.”
“Where?”
“Not Jonah himself.”
“His phone.”
The detective held up a map.
“The signal came back for forty-seven seconds.”
A red point glowed on the screen.
Wyatt leaned over it.
My blood turned cold.
The location was the old Hale freight depot.
The same place where Theodore’s key might open whatever proof my father had spent nine years trying to bury.
Beckett grabbed his coat.
“You stay here.”
I pushed the blanket away.
“No.”
“Sadie.”
“That place belongs to my family.”
“You were in surgery twelve hours ago.”
“I’m not asking permission to go inside.”
“I’m telling you I know the layout.”
Beckett looked at Wyatt.
Wyatt sighed.
“She does.”
The detective stared at me.
Then he pointed at the wheelchair.
“You do exactly what I say.”
Twenty-five minutes later, police vehicles turned onto the gravel road leading to the abandoned freight depot.
The old brick building looked smaller than I remembered.
One window was broken.
The loading-bay door stood open.
A black SUV was parked behind the building.
Beckett stopped everyone.
“That vehicle is registered to Melanie Hale.”
My heart began pounding.
Then a muffled crash came from inside the depot.
A man shouted.
Another voice answered.
A woman’s voice.
Melanie’s.
“Dad said if you found the box, you were supposed to disappear with it.”
Wyatt looked at me.
The detective drew his weapon.
And for the first time, I realized my little sister might not have been the weak link in my parents’ plan.
May you like
She might have been the person they trusted to finish it.
