Chapter 7 - The Woman Who Had Been Dead for Eighteen Years
My mother pushed Jamie behind her.
I grabbed the metal screwdriver from the desk and held it in both hands.
The footsteps stopped outside Unit 314.
Nobody breathed.
Then the emergency lights flickered on.
A man stood in the doorway.
He was thin, gray-haired, and maybe seventy.
He wore a maintenance jacket with the storage company’s logo across the chest.
Both hands were visible.
Empty.
“Don’t come closer,” I warned.
His eyes moved from me to my mother.
“Evelyn Cross.”
My mother stiffened.
“Do I know you?”
“No.”
“Then how do you know me?”
The man looked down the corridor.
“My name is Walter Pike. I worked for Aaron.”
“My husband was an accountant.”
Walter gave a sad smile.
“That’s what he wanted you to believe.”
My mother stared at him.
Walter shut the storage door behind him.
“Your husband spent six years auditing county contracts.”
I lowered the screwdriver slightly.
“What kind of contracts?”
“Courthouse renovations. Sheriff’s department vehicles. Juvenile detention services. Medical transportation. Private jail vendors. Aaron found payments going to companies that existed only on paper.”
My mother whispered, “Redwood Consulting.”
Walter nodded.
My heart accelerated.
“The account paying for this unit?”
“One of them.”
“Who owned it?”
“That’s the problem. Officially, nobody.”
Walter looked at the photograph.
“Unofficially, it belonged to a network of people who had been stealing from Millhaven County for almost twenty years.”
Judge Caldwell.
Sheriff Brennan.
District Attorney Reed.
The three powerful men standing beside my father.
My mother sank onto the desk chair.
“Aaron never told me.”
“He was trying to protect you.”
“Protect me?” Her voice sharpened. “I spent eight years in prison.”
Walter lowered his eyes.
“He failed.”
The honesty of it hit harder than any excuse.
Jamie stepped around my mother.
“What about Rebecca?”
Walter’s face changed.
Fear.
Real fear.
“I haven’t heard that name spoken aloud in years.”
“Is she alive?” I asked.
Walter didn’t answer.
I stepped closer.
“My father wrote that if Mom was arrested, we should find Rebecca.”
Walter rubbed both hands over his face.
“Your father came to me three days before he died. He was terrified. Said he finally understood why Rebecca disappeared.”
“Disappeared?”
“She didn’t die.”
My mother looked sick.
“Aaron told me she drowned.”
“Rebecca staged her death.”
“Why?”
Walter stared toward the metal door.
“Because she tried to expose the same people Aaron did.”
The storage unit seemed to shrink around us.
Walter explained that Rebecca Cross had worked as a courthouse records clerk eighteen years earlier.
She discovered property deeds being altered after elderly owners died.
Land was transferred to shell companies.
Those companies later sold the properties to developers for millions.
When Rebecca threatened to go to federal authorities, she vanished.
A car registered in her name was found near Lake Erie.
Her coat washed ashore.
No body was ever recovered.
Eventually, she was declared dead.
Years later, Aaron began noticing similar shell companies during his auditing work.
“He realized Rebecca had been right,” Walter said.
“And instead of calling police?”
Walter laughed bitterly.
“Which police? Sheriff Brennan?”
I looked at the photograph again.
“Why would Dad take a picture with them?”
“Because they thought he had joined them.”
My mother raised her head.
“What?”
“Aaron convinced them he wanted a piece of the money.”
“He would never—”
“He needed proof. Meetings. Documents. Recorded conversations.”
My pulse jumped.
“Where are they?”
Walter shook his head.
“I don’t know.”
“Then why leave this unit?”
“As a breadcrumb.”
Jamie spoke quietly.
“Dad liked puzzles.”
Walter looked at him.
“You remember that?”
Jamie nodded.
Our father had made treasure hunts for us when we were little. He hid candy inside coat pockets, under flowerpots, behind books.
Every clue led to another clue.
I examined the photograph again.
The courthouse clock behind the group showed 4:38.
The date.
October 17.
The clock.
The number 314.
Maybe none of it was random.
My phone rang.
Unknown number.
I answered.
“Nora Cross?”
A woman’s voice.
“Yes.”
“You opened the unit.”
I looked at Walter.
He shook his head quickly.
“Who is this?”
Silence.
Then:
“My name used to be Rebecca Cross.”
Every hair on my arms rose.
My mother stood.
“What?”
The woman continued.
“If Walter Pike is with you, leave him there.”
Walter went pale.
“Rebecca?”
“He sold Aaron out.”
Walter moved toward me.
“That’s a lie.”
Rebecca’s voice sharpened through the phone.
“Nora, listen carefully. Your father trusted three people outside your family. Two died. The third was Walter.”
Walter reached for my phone.
I stepped back.
“Don’t.”
“Nora, she’s manipulating you.”
Rebecca spoke faster.
“Ask him who called Sheriff Brennan the night your father died.”
Walter stopped moving.
My mother stared at him.
“Walter?”
His mouth tightened.
Outside, tires screeched.
A vehicle stopped near the storage building.
Rebecca whispered, “They found you.”
“Who?”
“Reed.”
The district attorney.
The man who had stood before television cameras three days earlier and promised to investigate how my mother had been wrongfully convicted.
A door slammed outside.
Then another.
Walter looked terrified.
“I didn’t know they would kill Aaron.”
My mother stepped toward him.
“You called them?”
“I thought they’d scare him.”
“You called them?”
Walter’s eyes filled.
“Yes.”
My mother slapped him.
The sound cracked through the unit.
Jamie flinched.
Walter didn’t defend himself.
He simply whispered, “I’ve regretted it every day.”
Footsteps approached outside.
More than one person.
Rebecca’s voice came through the phone.
“There’s a rear service exit forty feet behind Unit 320. Go now.”
We ran.
As we reached the end of the corridor, I looked back.
Walter remained beside Unit 314.
“Come with us!”
He shook his head.
“I owe Aaron one thing.”
The front door burst open.
Men shouted.
Walter pulled the fire alarm.
Sirens screamed through the building.
Red lights flashed.
Mom dragged Jamie toward the rear exit.
We reached our car and sped into the morning traffic.
Only when we were three miles away did I realize Rebecca was still on the phone.
“Where are you?” I asked.
“You’re not ready to know.”
“You called me.”
“Because Malcolm Reed will destroy your mother again if he gets the chance.”
“He can’t. Her conviction was overturned.”
Rebecca gave a humorless laugh.
“You still think this is about the murder trial.”
“What else would it be about?”
A pause.
Then she said something that made my mother grip the dashboard.
“Ask Evelyn why Aaron purchased a five-million-dollar life insurance policy four days before he died.”
I looked at Mom.
Her face went blank.
Rebecca continued.
“And ask her why the beneficiary wasn’t his wife.”
The call disconnected.
I stared at my mother.
“Who was it?”
She didn’t answer.
“Mom.”
Jamie whispered from the back seat.
“Nora.”
He was holding the photograph.
He pointed to Rebecca’s left hand.
A ring.
Our father’s wedding ring.
Not a similar one.
His.
The ring police claimed had been taken from his body the night he died.
And suddenly one terrible possibility entered my mind.
May you like
Maybe Rebecca hadn’t only been alive.
Maybe my father had known exactly where she was.
