Chapter 13 - The Brother Who Never Died
Raymond Voss had been dead for eleven years.
On paper.
In reality, investigators now suspected he'd used that death to vanish from public scrutiny.
The private airfield's security footage showed a man with silver hair, a gray beard, and a distinctive scar on his chin.
The scar matched an injury visible in Raymond's older photographs.
His identity still required confirmation.
But the evidence was growing.
The man had arrived in a black SUV.
Two others accompanied him.
They carried heavy cases onto a small private aircraft.
According to the flight records initially available, the aircraft was scheduled to depart that afternoon.
It never took off.
Investigators working with the appropriate aviation and law enforcement authorities stopped the departure while pursuing the necessary legal process.
The man carrying the blue ring was detained.
He initially gave his name as Robert Vale.
Then he requested an attorney.
He refused further questioning.
But fingerprints eventually confirmed the truth.
Raymond Voss.
Alive.
And furious.
Naomi called me shortly after the identification.
"It's him."
I sat down.
"Raymond?"
"Yes."
I closed my eyes.
Twenty-nine years.
A fire.
Missing children.
A dead man's stolen identity.
And now the man I believed I'd seen beyond the fence was in custody.
"Has he said anything?"
"Very little."
"Has he asked about Dalton?"
Naomi hesitated.
"Yes."
"What did he say?"
"He asked whether his brother had talked."
I looked down.
"That's interesting."
"It is."
The next discovery came from the aircraft.
Investigators recovered a large collection of documents and electronic storage devices.
Some contained financial records.
Others appeared to contain identification documents.
And among them were files that suggested payments had been made to certain officials in return for ignoring complaints.
The pattern was no longer confined to Briar County.
It reached into neighboring jurisdictions.
Private companies.
Former public officials.
And several institutions that had received public funding.
Not everyone named in the records was necessarily guilty.
But the breadth of the material suggested a conspiracy far larger than anyone had initially understood.
Then came the most important evidence.
A ledger.
Blue cover.
White pages.
Handwritten entries.
The same kind of book I'd seen as a child.
When Naomi showed me a photograph, I felt my breath catch.
"That's it."
"You're certain?"
"The blue book."
The ledger contained names, dates, financial notations, and references to children whose identities appeared to have been altered.
Some entries were nearly thirty years old.
Others were dated that year.
Naomi pointed to a notation in the margin.
Three initials.
F. R. V.
I leaned forward.
"Franklin Rourke. Raymond Voss."
"And the last V?"
I stared at the page.
Then I understood.
The initials didn't identify three men.
They marked the account of a company.
FRV Holdings.
A corporation established in 1995.
Its original shareholders included Franklin Rourke and Raymond Voss.
The third partner was hidden behind a trust.
For decades, investigators had apparently overlooked the trust's controlling beneficiary.
Now they had obtained records connecting that beneficiary to another person.
Arthur Bell.
The administrator.
The man on the phone.
The man who had supposedly been photographed bound to a chair.
I looked up.
"The photograph was staged."
Naomi nodded.
"That's one possibility."
"Bell wanted to look like a victim."
"We're evaluating that."
Then she opened another file.
"There's something else."
"What?"
"Bell owns property near the old Mercy House grounds."
I stared at her.
"What kind of property?"
"An underground storage facility built into a former storm shelter."
I felt my heartbeat quicken.
"Have investigators searched it?"
"They're pursuing access now."
I looked toward the window.
Somewhere beyond those trees, children had been frightened into silence.
Records had been buried.
Families had spent years mourning people who might still be alive.
And the men responsible had grown old believing they would never answer for it.
Then Naomi's phone rang.
Her expression changed.
"What happened?"
She listened.
Then closed her eyes.
"Understood."
She ended the call.
"Amara, there's been an incident at the Briar County detention facility."
My stomach tightened.
"Dalton?"
"He's alive."
I exhaled.
"Then what?"
"He tried to arrange a private conversation with one of the officers guarding him."
"About what?"
"Money."
I stared at her.
"He offered the officer half a million dollars to make a piece of evidence disappear."
"What evidence?"
Naomi looked me directly in the eyes.
"The original 1997 Mercy House surveillance tape."
I felt the floor seem to shift.
"There's a tape?"
"Apparently."
"Where?"
"Voss says it's hidden in the old courthouse."
I stared at her.
"Why would he admit that?"
"Because he believes it proves something that could save him."
"What?"
Naomi took a slow breath.
"He claims his brother ordered the fire."
I swallowed.
"And?"
"He says Arthur Bell ordered your mother's murder."
I stood frozen.
My mother had died of what the doctors called a heart attack.
At sixty-eight.
At home.
Peacefully, according to the medical record.
May you like
For nine years, I had accepted that explanation.
Now, for the first time, I wondered whether the worst deception of my life had been sitting beneath my grief all along.
