Chapter 7 - THE INHERITANCE
Emily stared at Margaret.
“Tomorrow?”
Margaret nodded slowly.
“September eleventh.”
“My birthday is October second.”
“That was probably chosen to hide you.”
Emily laughed in disbelief.
“So my birthday is fake. My mother is alive. My foster mother faked her death. My father kidnapped her, and apparently I own a chunk of a company I’ve never stepped inside.”
Margaret flinched at the word father.
Emily noticed.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“No. We’re past nothing.”
Margaret sat down.
“There’s something you should know about Thomas.”
Ruiz looked interested.
Margaret spoke carefully.
“Before you were born, my father discovered Thomas had been moving money out of the company.”
“How much?”
“Millions.”
Emily stared.
“And you stayed married to him?”
“I was eight months pregnant. I was scared. I told Thomas that after the baby came, I was leaving.”
Emily understood before Margaret said it.
“He needed you broken.”
Margaret nodded.
“My father changed his estate plan. He put shares into a trust for my child. Thomas would never control them.”
“Unless the child died.”
“Yes.”
Ruiz leaned against the wall.
“So Thomas stages an infant death, gains control over his grieving wife, and eventually controls the company.”
Margaret closed her eyes.
“For years I thought he was the person who saved me.”
Emily’s voice softened.
“That’s how people like him work.”
Margaret looked at her daughter.
“How do you know?”
Emily gave a sad smile.
“I wait tables. You learn a lot about men by watching how they treat people carrying plates.”
Ruiz almost smiled.
Then her phone buzzed.
“The bank.”
They drove to First Commonwealth under police escort.
Box 317 contained letters, receipts, an old cassette, and a sealed envelope addressed to Margaret.
Her hands shook as she opened it.
The letter was from her father.
Margaret,
If you are reading this, something has gone terribly wrong.
Thomas knows I changed the trust.
He also knows I intend to remove him from Ashford Industries.
I have arranged for the child to be temporarily moved if I believe either of you is in immediate danger.
The transfer will be handled only through Sister Catherine.
Do not trust Thomas.
Do not trust Claire.
Margaret stopped.
Emily said, “Your father planned to hide me?”
“Temporarily.”
Ruiz picked up another page.
“Looks like Thomas hijacked the plan.”
The cassette was labeled JULY 14.
A bank employee found an old player.
Static crackled.
Then Thomas’s younger voice.
“She’ll never recover from losing the baby.”
Claire answered.
“What if Margaret keeps looking?”
“She won’t.”
“You don’t know her.”
“I know grief.”
A pause.
Then Thomas said:
“Once Charles is gone, she’ll have no one.”
Margaret’s face went white.
“My father died July seventeenth.”
Emily looked at the letter.
“Three days after this recording.”
“How?” Ruiz asked.
“Car accident.”
Nobody moved.
Ruiz rewound the tape.
They listened again.
Once Charles is gone…
Margaret whispered, “It wasn’t an accident.”
Ruiz’s phone rang.
She answered.
Her expression hardened.
“What do you mean he escaped?”
Emily stood.
“Who?”
Ruiz covered the phone.
“Eric Danner.”
The security chief from Saint Anne’s.
Emily’s phone buzzed immediately.
One text.
A photograph.
Nora tied to a chair.
Behind her stood Thomas.
And beside him was another woman.
Older now.
Gray hair.
But Margaret recognized her instantly.
“Claire.”
Emily stared at her.
“I thought Thomas’s sister died ten years ago.”
Margaret whispered:
May you like
“So did I.”
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