Chapter 9 - The Betrayal Inside the Investigation
Marcus did not own the phone.
At least not anymore.
He recognized it immediately.
“That was my old office phone.”
“When did you get rid of it?” Detective Brooks asked.
“Eight months ago.”
“How?”
“I gave it to my assistant to recycle with several old devices.”
“Who handled the recycling?”
Marcus hesitated.
“My office administrator.”
“Name?”
“Claire Dawson.”
The name meant nothing to me.
Brooks wrote it down.
“How long has she worked for you?”
“Eleven years.”
My stomach tightened.
Eleven years was long enough to know everything.
Dad’s schedule.
Marcus’s medication.
The estate.
The properties.
Possibly the cellar.
“Where is she now?”
Marcus checked his phone.
“She called in sick yesterday.”
Brooks immediately ordered officers to locate her.
They found her apartment empty.
Closets cleared.
Computer gone.
Passport missing.
By afternoon, airport security confirmed Claire Dawson had boarded a flight to Montreal six hours before the fire.
“She ran,” I said.
Marcus sat in Detective Brooks’s office looking shattered.
“She was family.”
I almost laughed.
That word had lost much of its value.
Brooks placed photographs on the table.
Claire.
Mid-forties.
Dark hair.
Professional smile.
I had met her perhaps fifty times over the years.
She had sent flowers when Dad died.
She had hugged me at his funeral.
“She knew about your prescription?” Brooks asked.
“Yes.”
“She could access your house?”
“She had an emergency key.”
“Could she access Victor’s estate files?”
“Yes.”
“Northbridge?”
“No.”
“Could she know about it?”
Marcus looked at me.
“If she was reading confidential files, yes.”
The pattern became clearer.
Vanessa inside Damian’s life.
Claire inside Marcus’s office.
Hawthorne had not attacked my father directly.
He had surrounded him.
Layer by layer.
Person by person.
“What did Claire call Vanessa about before the fire?” I asked.
“We don’t know,” Brooks said. “The phone records show contact, not content.”
“Find her.”
“We’re working with Canadian authorities.”
“Before she disappears again.”
Brooks gave me a look reminding me she was the detective.
I did not apologize.
The fire damaged most of the workshop, but firefighters saved the rest of the house.
More importantly, officers recovered the flash drive.
Dad’s recording survived.
The video continued where we had stopped.
At the police station, Brooks played the remainder.
My father stared from the screen.
“The evidence Lucia collected was never hidden in the house.”
He coughed.
“She put it inside the Hawthorne family.”
I frowned.
“What does that mean?”
Dad lifted an old photograph.
Grant Hawthorne stood beside a woman.
Beautiful.
Blond.
Pregnant.
I had never seen her.
“This is Evelyn Hawthorne, Grant’s first wife.”
Samuel whispered, “I remember her.”
Dad continued.
“Evelyn discovered what Grant was doing shortly before Lucia’s crash.”
He looked tired.
“Lucia trusted her.”
A second image appeared.
My mother and Evelyn sitting together at a café.
“The two women copied Grant’s financial records.”
Brooks leaned toward the screen.
Dad continued.
“Lucia intended to bring them to prosecutors. After the crash, Evelyn disappeared from public life.”
Marcus whispered, “I thought she died.”
“She did,” Samuel said. “Cancer. About twenty years ago.”
Dad nodded on video.
“Before Evelyn died, she contacted me.”
He held up an envelope.
“She told me Lucia gave her the original evidence the morning before the crash.”
My heart pounded.
“Where is it?”
Dad almost seemed to hear me.
“Evelyn hid it inside a trust created for her son.”
Brooks paused the recording.
“Grant has a son?”
Marcus nodded.
“Nathan Hawthorne.”
I knew the name.
Everyone in Westchester did.
Nathan Hawthorne ran the Hawthorne Foundation.
Hospitals.
Scholarships.
Domestic violence shelters.
He was everything his father publicly was not.
“He has nothing to do with development,” I said.
“That may be why Evelyn trusted him,” Marcus replied.
Brooks resumed.
“Evelyn told me Nathan would receive a sealed archive after Grant’s death—or upon proof Grant committed violence against the Moretti family.”
Dad leaned closer.
“Elena, if Hawthorne is attacking you, find Nathan.”
The screen went dark.
The room remained silent.
Finally I said, “Where is Nathan?”
Marcus searched.
“He has an office in Manhattan.”
Brooks shook her head.
“You’re not going.”
“I am.”
“Elena.”
“My mother may still be alive. Hawthorne may have controlled or hidden her for thirty years. Nathan may have evidence.”
“You are a crime victim with people actively targeting you.”
“Then send officers.”
Brooks stared at me.
“I can’t order a civilian to open a private family archive.”
“Fine.”
I stood.
“I’ll ask.”
Nathan Hawthorne agreed to see us that evening.
Not because I was Elena Moretti.
Because I mentioned Lucia.
His assistant called back within three minutes.
Nathan’s office overlooked Central Park.
He was fifty-one.
Tall.
Silver at the temples.
He looked like his father around the eyes but nothing like him in expression.
The moment I entered, he dismissed his staff.
“You’re Victor’s daughter.”
“Yes.”
“Is Victor really dead?”
The question startled me.
“You didn’t know?”
“I knew what newspapers reported.”
“What does that mean?”
Nathan walked toward the window.
“My father lies for a living.”
He turned.
“So I stopped believing deaths connected to him without proof.”
That was one of the darkest sentences I had ever heard.
I told him about Dad.
Damian.
Vanessa.
The poisoning.
The fire.
My mother.
Nathan did not interrupt.
When I finished, he closed his eyes.
“My mother warned me this day might come.”
He walked toward a bookcase and removed a small metal box.
Inside was a sealed document.
He placed it on the desk.
“My mother’s trust instructions.”
“What does it say?”
“That if a member of Lucia Moretti’s family comes to me claiming Grant harmed them, I’m supposed to open a safe-deposit box.”
My hands trembled.
“Where?”
“Manhattan.”
“When?”
“Tomorrow morning.”
“Why not tonight?”
“Bank’s closed.”
I hated clocks.
Waiting had become dangerous.
Nathan studied me.
“There’s something you should know before we do this.”
“What?”
“My father tried to buy your family home because he believes Evelyn hid evidence there.”
“He’s wrong.”
“Yes.”
“He knows that now?”
Nathan’s expression hardened.
“If he ordered that fire, he probably does.”
“Then where will he look next?”
Nathan looked at the sealed trust instructions.
“Here.”
As if summoned by the word, the lights went out.
Nathan’s office plunged into darkness.
His phone buzzed.
One message.
UNKNOWN NUMBER.
He opened it.
A photograph filled the screen.
A woman sat in a wheelchair beside a window.
White hair.
Thin face.
A newspaper lay across her lap.
Today’s date was visible.
My heart stopped.
I knew those eyes.
I had seen them every day in the mirror.
My mother.
Alive.
Beneath the photograph was a message.
May you like
ELENA CAN HAVE THE WOMAN OR THE EVIDENCE.
NOT BOTH.
