Chapter 6 - The Wife Who Lied for Him
Rebecca sat on the edge of the hotel chair with both hands wrapped around a paper cup of water.
“I lied because Mark asked me to.”
Her voice was nearly flat.
Not because she was calm.
Because she was exhausted.
“How long have you known?” I asked.
“That he wasn’t home?”
“Yes.”
“Since that night.”
Marcus stood near the door.
“Where did he say he was going?”
“He didn’t.”
She looked at me.
“He got a call around eleven forty.”
“From who?”
“I don’t know.”
“He went into his office.”
“Five minutes later he came downstairs dressed.”
“What did he say?”
“That there was a problem at the company.”
“What time did he return?”
“After three.”
My father had been found around two.
I felt cold.
“Was Mark upset?”
Rebecca stared into the cup.
“He was shaking.”
Marcus leaned forward slightly.
“Did you ask what happened?”
“Yes.”
“What did he say?”
“That his father had collapsed.”
My pulse jumped.
“Before the police called?”
Rebecca nodded.
That changed everything.
“How did he know?”
“I asked the same question.”
“And?”
“He said someone from security contacted him.”
“Did they?”
“I don’t know.”
She looked at me.
“The next morning he told me Dad had probably suffered a heart attack.”
“And he asked you to lie.”
“He said it would prevent unnecessary questions.”
Marcus’s face remained controlled.
“Why come here now?”
Rebecca laughed weakly.
“Because I spent twelve years convincing myself that Mark’s version of reality was always the reasonable one.”
She looked at me.
“And today I heard him on the phone telling someone that you couldn’t be allowed near the ledger.”
Silence.
“What ledger?”
“I don’t know.”
“The original Bennett ledger?”
“Maybe.”
She pulled something from her purse.
A photograph.
Not an old one.
A phone photo of a notebook page.
She handed it to Marcus.
Numbers.
Dates.
Names.
At the bottom was a handwritten notation:
E. BENNETT - 50% CAPITAL INTEREST.
Marcus stared at it.
“Where did you get this?”
“Mark sent it to himself.”
“From?”
“Richard’s phone.”
I looked at her.
“When?”
“Two days ago.”
My father was still alive then.
Rebecca continued.
“I saw it because his laptop and phone sync.”
“He deleted the message afterward.”
“But you kept a copy.”
“I didn’t know why at the time.”
She looked directly at me.
“I just knew my husband was hiding something.”
I remembered a younger version of myself.
Standing in my parents’ dining room.
Knowing everyone around me believed Marcus was a mistake.
Knowing staying quiet would be easier.
Rebecca was sitting in that place now.
“What happens when Mark learns you told us?”
Her eyes filled.
“I don’t know.”
Marcus asked, “Do you feel safe going home?”
She did not answer.
That was enough.
We called Detective Gaines.
Rebecca gave her statement at one in the morning.
By dawn, investigators had requested Mark’s phone location records.
But the larger shock came from North Carolina.
Marcus called his father after breakfast.
James Bennett went silent for almost ten seconds when Marcus said the name Holloway.
Then he said, “So Richard finally told you.”
Marcus stood up.
“You knew?”
I watched his face.
He put the call on speaker.
James exhaled.
“I knew some of it.”
“How much?”
“That Granddad Elijah helped start the company.”
“And?”
“That he signed away his rights.”
Marcus paced.
“Did you know the signature was obtained after Charles Holloway filed different incorporation papers?”
“No.”
“Did you know he was supposed to own fifty percent?”
Silence.
“Dad.”
“Yes.”
Marcus stopped.
I closed my eyes.
James continued.
“Your grandfather made me promise never to chase it.”
“Why?”
“Because he spent the last twenty years of his life angry.”
James’s voice thickened.
“He didn’t want that to become our inheritance.”
Marcus looked away.
“He thought pursuing the Holloways would consume us.”
“So instead we pretend it didn’t happen?”
“No.”
James’s voice sharpened.
“We remembered.”
“Remembering and confronting are not the same thing.”
“I know.”
That sentence sounded like something my father might have said at the end of his life.
James continued.
“Your grandmother kept papers.”
“What papers?”
“Letters from Richard.”
I looked at Marcus.
“When?”
“The first came about fifteen years ago.”
Before I met Marcus.
“What did Richard want?” I asked.
James recognized my voice.
“Anna?”
“Yes.”
He sighed.
“He wanted to meet.”
“Did you?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“I thought he wanted us to sign something.”
“Did he explain?”
“He said he had learned more about what his father did.”
Marcus rubbed the bridge of his nose.
“Do you still have the letters?”
“Yes.”
“Dad, we need them.”
James was quiet.
Then:
“I can drive up.”
Marcus blinked.
“You don’t have to.”
“I should have done it years ago.”
He arrived that afternoon carrying a faded green metal box.
Inside were seventeen letters.
All from my father.
None answered.
The earliest was dated fifteen years ago.
Mr. Bennett,
I believe my father deceived yours in a way that materially altered both families.
I am trying to determine how to address something that should have been addressed decades ago.
I stared at the date.
My father had known.
Had tried.
Then had stopped.
James watched me.
“You hate him?”
I looked at him.
“I don’t know what I feel.”
“That’s probably the truthful answer.”
Marcus opened another letter.
This one was dated eight years earlier.
Only weeks after the letter my father wrote to me.
James,
My daughter married your son.
I reacted badly.
That sentence made Marcus stop.
Worse than badly.
I responded with the same arrogance that allowed my father to justify what he did to Elijah.
I cannot claim to be correcting the past while repeating its logic in my own home.
Marcus sat down.
For the first time since this began, tears filled his eyes.
He hated that.
Marcus rarely cried.
He turned his face away.
His father rested a hand on his shoulder.
I kept reading.
I intend to contact Anna.
Before I do, I want to know what restitution your family would consider just.
There was no answer because James had never replied.
“I thought he was protecting the Holloways,” James said.
“Maybe he was,” I answered.
“Maybe he was also trying to change.”
Human beings were becoming inconveniently complicated.
Then Samuel called.
His voice was urgent.
“Anna, I need you and Marcus at the office.”
“What happened?”
“We found the original ledger.”
I stood.
“Where?”
Samuel hesitated.
“Not where Richard said it was.”
May you like
“Then where?”
“In Mark’s office.”
