Chapter 6 - The Woman Everyone Told Me Was Dead
Her name was Rebecca Shaw.
I had not spoken it in thirty years.
Rebecca had been Daniel’s executive assistant.
She was twenty-eight when the lake house burned.
Smart.
Funny.
Unusually fearless around powerful men.
Daniel trusted her with everything.
Two weeks after his death, Rebecca disappeared.
Police believed she left the state.
Charles told me she had stolen company records and fled to Canada.
Six months later, he told employees she had died in a car accident.
I never questioned it.
Why would I?
My husband was dead.
My son barely spoke.
I was drowning.
But Miles’s words at the restaurant changed everything.
Dad wasn’t the only person who died because of that fire.
Nora searched.
There was no death certificate for Rebecca Shaw.
No accident report.
No burial.
Nothing.
“She may still be alive,” Nora said.
Three days later, they found her.
Arizona.
Living under the name Rebecca Monroe.
Seventy-eight years old.
Retired school librarian.
Widowed.
Two dogs.
When Nora told me, I cried.
Not because Rebecca was alive.
Because someone had lied to me so completely that I had mourned a living woman.
Rebecca agreed to meet.
When she entered the interview room by video call, I recognized her instantly.
Age had changed her hair and face.
Not her eyes.
“Eleanor.”
She began crying.
So did I.
“Why did you disappear?”
Rebecca looked toward Nora.
“Because Charles tried to kill me.”
The story came slowly.
Daniel discovered Charles’s theft because Rebecca found suspicious invoices.
She helped him gather records.
The night before the fire, Daniel gave her copies.
After he died, Charles came to her apartment.
“He told me I had misunderstood the accounts,” she said. “Then he offered me fifty thousand dollars.”
“You refused.”
“Yes.”
“What happened?”
“He said I should leave Chicago.”
She did not.
Three nights later, someone forced her car off the road.
Rebecca survived because she crashed into a ditch instead of over an embankment.
She went to police.
The deputy who interviewed her was the same man Charles later paid to alter evidence.
“He called Charles before I even left the station.”
Rebecca understood.
She took the records and disappeared.
“Why didn’t you contact me?”
Her face crumpled.
“I tried.”
My heart stopped.
“What?”
“I mailed you a letter.”
“The letter I kept?”
She shook her head.
“No. Mine was six pages.”
I had never received it.
Rebecca looked ashamed.
“I was afraid Charles would find me. Eventually I convinced myself staying away protected you.”
“What did the letter say?”
“That Daniel believed Miles needed psychiatric intervention.”
I closed my eyes.
“And?”
Rebecca hesitated.
“That Miles had threatened him.”
Nora leaned forward.
“What threat?”
Rebecca looked at me.
“Three weeks before the fire, Daniel told me Miles said, ‘If you die before Mom, everything becomes ours anyway.’”
I felt hollow.
Children say terrible things.
Sometimes without meaning them.
But with everything else, the sentence felt different.
“Did you mail the fire report three weeks ago?” Nora asked.
Rebecca shook her head.
“No.”
So the anonymous sender remained.
Then Rebecca said something unexpected.
“But I know who might have.”
“Who?”
“Thomas Reed.”
The fire investigator.
Nora frowned.
“We spoke to him. He never mentioned mailing anything.”
Rebecca looked confused.
“Then ask him about the box.”
“What box?”
She leaned closer to the screen.
“Daniel kept duplicate records inside a red document box at the lake house. Thomas found it after the fire.”
Nora checked her notes.
“No red box appears in evidence.”
“Exactly.”
Another missing item.
Another secret.
Reed lived four hours away.
Nora drove there that afternoon.
At nine that evening, she called me.
Her voice sounded different.
“Eleanor.”
“What happened?”
“Thomas Reed is missing.”
My stomach dropped.
“Since when?”
“His neighbor saw him yesterday morning.”
“His house?”
“Back door open. Car still there.”
Miles was in custody.
Charles was in custody.
Who was left?
Then I remembered Grant Holloway.
Miles’s attorney.
The man who whispered damn when Daniel’s voicemail played.
“Nora.”
“I know.”
“Grant.”
“We’re looking for him.”
They found Grant’s car at O’Hare.
He had booked a flight to London.
He never boarded.
Security footage showed him leaving the terminal through a service exit.
Now two men were missing.
One knew the original truth.
The other had spent twenty years cleaning up Miles’s problems.
At midnight, my phone rang.
Unknown number.
I answered.
Nothing.
Then breathing.
“Who is this?”
Silence.
A man spoke.
“Mrs. Carter?”
I recognized the voice.
Thomas Reed.
“Where are you?”
“I don’t have much time.”
“Are you safe?”
“No.”
I stood.
“Nora Bell is looking for you.”
“I know.”
“Tell me where you are.”
“I can’t.”
“Why?”
A car passed in the background.
Then Reed whispered.
“I sent you the report.”
My grip tightened.
“You?”
“I should’ve done it thirty years ago.”
“Why now?”
“Because someone came to see me.”
“Who?”
“Grant Holloway.”
There it was.
“What did he want?”
“The red box.”
“Do you have it?”
Silence.
“Thomas?”
“Yes.”
My heart pounded.
“What’s inside?”
“Enough to destroy all of them.”
I closed my eyes.
“Where is it?”
“I hid it.”
“Tell me.”
“I’ll only give it to you.”
“Why?”
“Because Daniel told me to.”
I froze.
“What?”
“Daniel spoke to me the day before he died.”
A noise sounded behind Reed.
A door.
His breathing stopped.
“Thomas?”
No response.
“Thomas!”
Then I heard another man’s voice.
Faint.
Cold.
“Give me the phone.”
Reed shouted.
The line went dead.
I called Nora immediately.
Police traced the call.
An abandoned motel outside Milwaukee.
They arrived thirty-four minutes later.
Thomas Reed was gone.
But blood was found in the room.
On the nightstand sat a single Polaroid.
It showed Daniel.
Rebecca.
Thomas.
And one other person.
A young attorney I recognized instantly.
Grant Holloway.
Written across the bottom in Daniel’s handwriting were five words:
IF I DIE, TRUST THESE THREE.
Grant had not begun as Miles’s accomplice.
May you like
He had begun as Daniel’s ally.
And whatever had changed him might be the final secret my husband had taken to his grave.
