Chapter 9: Daniel
I had not heard that name in four years.
Daniel Reeves.
My brother.
He had died before Marcus and I met — a car accident on a wet highway in November, three days before his thirty-second birthday.
I had been the one to identify him.
I had been the one to call our mother.
I had carried that for a long time before I learned how to set it down somewhere I could live with.
Marcus knew about Daniel.
I had told him early, the way you tell someone important things when you're deciding if they're safe.
He knew Daniel had existed.
He knew how I had lost him.
What Marcus didn't know — what almost no one knew — was that Daniel had worked for a man named Vincent Hale.
And Vincent Hale was Isabella's father.
I told Marcus all of it at the kitchen table, with the afternoon light coming through the window and Grace still on the phone, listening.
"Daniel needed money," I said.
"After our father got sick.
He took a job with Hale's company — financial consulting, he called it.
I didn't ask too many questions.
I should have." I looked at my hands.
"About eight months before the accident, Daniel told me he'd found something.
In the company records.
He said Vincent Hale had been moving money through shell accounts.
He said it was significant." I paused.
"He said he was going to report it."
"And then he d*ed," Marcus said.
"The police ruled it an accident.
Wet road, poor visibility, no other vehicles involved." I looked up.
"I never had a reason to think otherwise.
Until now."
Grace spoke.
"You're saying Isabella may know something about the circumstances of your brother's death."
"I'm saying her father might.
And she's using Daniel's name as a threat.
She knows I never fully closed that door." I pressed my hand flat on the table.
"She's telling me she can open it.
She's telling me she has something she can use."
"Or she's bluffting," Marcus said.
"Trying to destabilize you."
"Maybe.
But she used his name specifically.
Not 'I know things about your past.' His name." I looked at Marcus.
"She's done her research.
She knew exactly which name would land."
Marcus turned to the phone.
"Grace."
"I heard all of it," Grace said.
"This changes the scope significantly.
If there's any connection between Vincent Hale and the circumstances of Daniel Reeves's death, that is not a civil matter.
That is a criminal investigation, and it goes well beyond what my firm handles." A pause.
"I have a contact at the federal level.
Financial crimes.
If Hale was running shell accounts, there may already be a file."
"Can you find out?" Marcus said.
"I can make a call this afternoon." Another pause.
"Khloe, I need to ask you something directly.
The evidence Daniel found — did he give you anything?
Documents, files, anything he'd copied?"
I was quiet for a moment.
"He sent me an email," I said.
"The week before he d*ed.
I couldn't open the attachment — it was password protected and I didn't know the password.
I kept it.
I never deleted it." I looked at Marcus.
"It's in an old account.
I haven't opened that account in three years."
"Log in today," Grace said.
"Don't forward it, don't download it, don't open the attachment yet.
Just confirm it's there and send me the account details.
I'll have someone look at it properly."
"All right."
"And Khloe." Grace's voice was careful.
"Isabella sending that message directly — not through her attorney — means she's frightened.
Frightened people make mistakes.
She just told us she has information she's been sitting on.
That is leverage she has now given away." A pause.
"Don't respond to her.
Don't acknowledge the message.
Let her wait."
We ended the call.
Marcus sat across from me.
The coffee was completely cold now.
"Why didn't you ever tell me about the email?" he said.
"Because I couldn't open it.
Because I didn't know what was in it.
Because every time I thought about going back to that account I thought about Daniel and I—" I stopped.
"I wasn't ready."
Marcus reached across the table and covered my hand with his.
"Are you ready now?" he said.
I thought about Isabella's smile at the camera.
I thought about her voice in the hospital room — *walk away, take the settlement, raise your child somewhere quiet.* I thought about Daniel, who had found something and tried to do the right thing and d*ed on a wet road before he could.
May you like
"Yes," I said.
"I'm ready now."
