Chapter 4 - The First Payment
Four hundred eighty-six thousand dollars.
Alexander repeated the number until it stopped sounding like money.
It began sounding like years.
Seven years stolen.
Six birthdays missed.
A woman dead.
Two children terrified.
Daniel drove because Alexander could barely focus.
Detective Hayes had arranged for him to view the contents recovered from the locker at police headquarters.
Lily and Hope remained at the hospital with Daniel’s wife, Rebecca, and two officers outside the room.
Alexander hated leaving.
Lily had hated it more.
“You’re coming back?”
“Yes.”
“Promise?”
“I promise.”
She studied his face as though evaluating whether promises meant anything when adults made them.
Then she handed him Rachel’s photograph.
“For luck.”
Alexander kept it inside his jacket.
At headquarters, Hayes led him into an evidence room.
Three plastic containers sat on a metal table.
“Everything was inside locker 317.”
She opened the first.
Rachel had organized her life like someone expecting to die.
Emails.
Bank statements.
Photographs.
Printouts.
Phone records.
Screenshots.
Names.
Dates.
Every page had handwritten notes.
Rachel had built a case.
Alexander touched nothing until Hayes gave permission.
The first document was an email supposedly sent by Alexander seven years earlier.
Rachel,
I’ve thought about the pregnancy.
I’m not interested in becoming a father.
If you continue with it, that is your decision.
Do not involve me.
Alexander’s jaw tightened.
“I never wrote this.”
“We know.”
He looked up.
Hayes continued.
“The metadata is inconsistent with your corporate mail server.”
“Can you identify where it came from?”
“We’re working on it.”
Alexander read the next paragraph.
If you publicly claim the child is mine, my attorneys will respond.
His stomach turned.
Rachel had read that while pregnant.
Alone.
Believing he wrote it.
At the bottom was his electronic signature.
It looked perfect.
Hayes slid another paper toward him.
“This was Rachel’s response.”
Alexander read.
I don’t want your money.
I wanted you.
If this is who you really are, I never knew you.
I won’t contact you again.
Rachel.
Alexander gripped the edge of the table.
“Did she send it?”
“Yes.”
“I never received it.”
“We know that too.”
Alexander looked at Hayes.
“How?”
“Because it went to an address created to look almost identical to yours.”
One letter different.
An extra r in Reed.
He stared at it.
That tiny difference had changed four lives.
“Who created it?”
“The account was registered through a privacy service.”
Hayes slid another record toward him.
“But payment for the privacy service came from a corporate card.”
Alexander knew before he asked.
“Whose?”
“Camille Laurent.”
He closed his eyes.
Hayes opened the second container.
Inside was a handwritten journal.
Rachel’s.
“We haven’t finished processing this.”
Alexander stared at it.
“Can I read it?”
“Not yet.”
His frustration flashed.
Hayes held up a hand.
“There’s something else you need to see first.”
She removed a photograph.
Marcus Vale.
Standing outside a restaurant.
Beside him was Camille.
The date stamp was six years earlier.
Alexander felt sick.
“Camille told me she had never met him.”
Hayes nodded.
“She lied.”
Another photograph.
Camille entering an apartment building.
Another.
Marcus getting into her car.
Another.
An envelope changing hands.
“How did Rachel get these?”
“Private investigator.”
“When?”
“Last year.”
Alexander sat down.
Rachel had spent months reconstructing what happened.
She had gotten closer and closer.
Then she died.
Hayes opened the third container.
Inside was a small digital recorder.
“She recorded conversations?”
“Several.”
“Camille?”
“We haven’t reviewed all of them.”
Alexander looked at her.
“But you listened to one.”
Hayes’s expression confirmed it.
“What did she say?”
“Alexander…”
“What did she say?”
Hayes pressed play.
Static filled the room.
Then Rachel’s voice.
Alexander’s chest seized.
It had been seven years since he heard it.
“Why are you here?”
Another woman answered.
Camille.
“To help you.”
“You’ve spent seven years helping yourself.”
“Lower your voice.”
“No.”
A pause.
Rachel continued.
“He knows nothing.”
“He doesn’t need to.”
“He has a daughter.”
“He has a life.”
“And Lily isn’t part of it?”
“She wasn’t supposed to be.”
Alexander stopped breathing.
The recording continued.
Rachel sounded furious.
“You forged his signature.”
“I protected him.”
“You protected yourself.”
“You don’t understand what his life was like.”
“I was part of his life.”
“Until you became a liability.”
Alexander’s hands curled into fists.
Rachel laughed bitterly.
“A pregnant girlfriend was a liability?”
“He was twenty-nine and trying to save a billion-dollar company.”
“He would have chosen us.”
“That was exactly the problem.”
The room went completely silent.
Alexander looked at Hayes.
“Play it.”
She did.
Rachel’s voice came again.
“What did you just say?”
Camille answered.
“He would have chosen you.”
“So you admit it.”
“I admit Alexander was weak where you were concerned.”
“Weak?”
“He loved you enough to destroy himself.”
“No.”
“He would have walked away from Reed Holdings.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I do.”
“How?”
“Because he told me.”
Alexander stared at the recorder.
Memory returned.
His father in intensive care.
Banks threatening foreclosure.
Rachel sitting beside him at 2:00 a.m.
Alexander telling Camille during an exhausted conversation that if Rachel asked him to leave Boston, he might.
He had forgotten saying it.
Camille hadn’t.
On the recording Rachel asked the question Alexander was thinking.
“So you decided for him?”
“Yes.”
A single word.
Seven years of damage inside one syllable.
Rachel’s voice trembled.
“You stole my daughter’s father.”
Camille answered quietly.
“No.”
Then came the sentence that made Alexander’s skin crawl.
“I made sure Alexander became the man he was supposed to become.”
The recording ended.
Alexander stood abruptly.
The chair hit the wall.
Hayes watched him.
“You cannot contact her.”
“She is in my house.”
“No.”
He looked at her.
“Camille’s attorney moved her to a hotel.”
Alexander laughed without humor.
“Of course.”
“She hasn’t been charged.”
“Why not?”
“Lying to your fiancé isn’t a crime.”
“Fraud is.”
“We’re building that.”
“She paid Marcus.”
“We’re building that too.”
“And Rachel is dead.”
Hayes held his stare.
“We do not yet have evidence Camille killed her.”
Alexander turned away.
He wanted something he could hit.
Something he could break.
Instead he saw the photograph in his jacket.
Rachel laughing.
He remembered Lily’s warning.
Mommy said you’d want to hurt the people who did it.
She said don’t.
He forced his hands open.
Hayes continued.
“The larger issue right now is Marcus Vale.”
Alexander looked back.
“Where is he?”
“Missing.”
“Since when?”
“Wednesday morning.”
The morning after Rachel died.
Alexander’s pulse changed.
“Does he know Lily is with me?”
“We don’t know.”
“He will.”
“Yes.”
“And Hope?”
Hayes hesitated.
“What?”
“We ran a standard database check on Hope’s birth certificate.”
“And?”
“Something is wrong.”
Alexander stepped closer.
“What?”
“The hospital listed on the certificate has no record of Rachel giving birth there.”
He frowned.
“Could the record be incomplete?”
“We checked.”
Hayes placed a copy of the certificate on the table.
“There’s no delivery record.”
“No newborn screening.”
“No pediatric discharge.”
“No matching medical file.”
Alexander stared at the name.
Hope Amelia Vale.
“Then where was she born?”
“We don’t know.”
His phone vibrated.
Rebecca.
Alexander answered instantly.
“Is Lily okay?”
Rebecca was whispering.
“Alexander, there’s a problem.”
He walked toward the door.
“What happened?”
“A man called the nurses’ station asking for Lily and Hope.”
His blood ran cold.
“What man?”
“He said he was Hope’s father.”
Marcus.
Alexander was already moving.
“Are the officers there?”
“Yes.”
“Do not let anyone into that room.”
“We won’t.”
Rebecca hesitated.
“But Alexander…”
“What?”
“The caller knew Lily was at the hospital.”
Alexander stopped.
Only a handful of people knew which hospital.
Daniel.
Rebecca.
The police.
Dr. Harris.
Hospital staff.
And Alexander’s security team.
Someone had told Marcus.
Hayes saw his face.
“What?”
Alexander lowered the phone.
“He knows where they are.”
Hayes was already reaching for hers.
Then Alexander’s phone buzzed again.
A message.
Unknown number.
He opened it.
A photograph filled the screen.
Lily.
Taken through the hospital window.
Taken minutes ago.
Beneath it were seven words.
She was never supposed to find you.
Alexander stared at the image.
Then another message appeared.
The next photograph was Hope.
Sleeping in her crib.
And beneath that:
May you like
Give me the baby, and Lily lives.
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