Chapter 5 - The Folder Under the Desk
Police reached my house before I did.
Claire was alive.
I found her sitting inside a patrol car wrapped in a blanket.
Her hands were shaking.
Someone had entered through the front door using a key.
They had gone directly upstairs.
Claire locked herself inside Emily’s bathroom and called 911.
The intruder fled before officers arrived.
Nothing expensive had been taken.
Only the folder.
That told me everything.
Claire hugged Emily when we arrived.
“I’m sorry.”
Emily clung to her.
“You didn’t do anything.”
I knelt beside Claire.
“What was in the folder?”
She looked toward the officers.
“Copies of Emily’s records.”
“What else?”
“Documents about the trust.”
Laura’s parents had died before Emily was born.
Laura inherited several commercial properties and shares in a medical technology company.
When she died, those assets entered a protected trust for Emily.
I controlled normal expenses as Emily’s father.
But I couldn’t sell the major assets.
Rebecca knew Laura had left Emily money.
She did not know how much.
At least I thought she didn’t.
Claire swallowed.
“There was a number written on one page.”
“What number?”
“Eighteen point four million.”
My stomach twisted.
That was approximately what the trust had grown to.
“How would Rebecca know that?”
“I don’t know.”
Claire wiped her eyes.
“There was also a handwritten list.”
“What kind of list?”
“Steps.”
I felt my pulse in my throat.
“What steps?”
Claire looked at Emily.
I understood immediately.
“Lauren, take Emily into the kitchen.”
Emily shook her head.
“No.”
I crouched beside her.
“I just need five minutes.”
She studied my face.
Then she took Lauren’s hand.
When they were gone, Claire spoke.
“The first line said marriage.”
I said nothing.
“The second line said evaluation.”
Andrew, who had followed us from the chapel, took out his notebook.
“The third?”
“Placement.”
My stomach tightened.
“And the fourth?”
Claire hesitated.
“Guardianship.”
Andrew looked at me.
“What was the fifth?”
“Trust control.”
The room became silent.
I walked to Rebecca’s office.
She had moved into my home eight months earlier.
The desk drawers had been emptied.
Her laptop was gone.
But something remained beneath the desk.
A small torn corner of paper.
I picked it up.
There were two typed words visible.
Mallory Clinic.
Andrew searched the name on his phone.
Dr. Jonathan Mallory.
The psychologist who had supposedly evaluated Emily.
“He has an office thirty minutes away.”
I was already moving.
The police stopped me from going alone.
Two detectives accompanied Andrew and me.
Dr. Mallory’s receptionist looked nervous when we arrived.
The doctor was not there.
His office door was locked.
One detective spoke with the receptionist while the other called for a warrant.
I stared through the glass wall.
Then I noticed a photograph hanging beside Mallory’s credentials.
It showed a charity gala from five years earlier.
Dr. Mallory stood beside several donors.
Victor Hale was there.
So was Rebecca.
And standing directly beside Rebecca was someone else.
My late wife.
Laura.
I moved closer.
Rebecca had told me she never met Laura.
Not once.
Yet there they were.
Smiling together for the camera.
Andrew stared at the picture.
“Michael.”
“I see it.”
But I noticed something he didn’t.
Laura wasn’t smiling at Rebecca.
She was looking at her.
May you like
And even in a five-year-old photograph, I recognized the expression on my wife’s face.
Laura was afraid.
