Chapter 3: The Man Who Was Supposed to Be Gone
I stood in the doorway for a long time after the woman left.
I didn't know her name.
She hadn't offered it.
She had pressed the envelope into my hands, glanced once more over her shoulder, and walked quickly back to a dark sedan parked at the end of the street.
The car pulled away before I thought to look at the plates.
I looked at the photograph again.
The man in the picture was standing on the pavement outside my mother's house.
He was wearing a grey coat, slightly turned away from the camera, but his face was visible enough.
The jaw.
The way he held his shoulders.
The slight forward lean that I had spent years trying to forget.
My father.
Richard Hale.
De@d, according to the police report.
De@d, according to the funeral my mother had arranged at a small chapel in Connecticut eleven years ago.
De@d, according to every document I had ever been shown.
I sat down at the kitchen table and called Daniel back.
"I need you to come here," I said.
"Tonight."
"Emma, it's nearly ten o'clock—"
"Daniel.
Tonight."
He arrived forty minutes later.
I set the photograph on the table between us without a word.
He picked it up.
Studied it.
Set it down.
"Where did this come from?"
"A woman came to my door.
She said Celeste sent her."
"Celeste." He said the name carefully, the way you say something you're not sure is safe to touch.
"Why would Celeste send you this?"
"I don't know yet.
But she said I needed to see it before Friday.
Before they move the trust."
Daniel leaned back in his chair.
His jacket was still on.
He hadn't planned to stay long.
"Emma, if your father is alive—"
"Then the death certificate is fraudulent.
Which means the trust transfer that happened after his death—"
"—was based on a lie." He finished it quietly.
"And if the trust transfer was fraudulent, then everything built on top of it—"
"Nathan's shares.
His stake in the company.
All of it." I looked at him.
"How long would it take to verify?"
"To confirm whether the death certificate is real or forged?
With the right contacts, forty-eight hours.
Maybe less." He paused.
"But Emma, think about what you're saying.
If your father is alive and your mother knew—"
"She knew." The words came out flat.
Certain.
"She had to.
She arranged the funeral."
Daniel was quiet for a moment.
"Then your mother isn't just someone who had access to your files." He tapped the edge of the photograph.
"She may be the person who started all of this."
I didn't answer.
I was looking at the image again.
At the grey coat.
At the way my father's head was turned, as though he had heard something and was deciding whether to look back.
He hadn't looked back.
He had just walked away.
The same thing he had always done.
My phone buzzed on the table.
A number I didn't recognize.
I picked it up.
"Emma." The voice was low.
Male.
Careful.
"Don't hang up.
I know about the document.
I know about Nathan.
And I know what's supposed to happen on Friday."
My hand tightened on the phone.
"Who is this?"
May you like
A pause that lasted exactly long enough to change everything.
"I think you already know."
