Agent Brooks asked Helen to repeat it.
“Martin Creed was Ruth Sterling’s husband?”
“Yes.”
“Legally?”
“Briefly.”
“Records?”
“Sealed.”
“Why?”
“Franklin.”
Brooks’s expression hardened.
“That is not sufficient.”
“It was in 1964. Ruth married him under another surname. When Franklin discovered it, he had the marriage annulled through a judge he controlled.”
“Creed wasn’t wealthy then?”
“No.”
“What was he?”
“A law student.”
I leaned against the steel cabinet.
That explained his age.
He was not merely some current corporate attorney preserving an inherited system.
He had been alive at the beginning.
“Did he know Ruth was collecting evidence?”
“Yes.”
“Did he help?”
“At first.”
“At first?”
Helen’s voice sharpened.
“Nothing in this story stays simple, Margaret.”
“That is becoming apparent.”
“Martin wanted Ruth safe. Ruth wanted Franklin exposed. They fought constantly about it.”
“Sound familiar.”
“Yes.”
“Did Martin betray her?”
“I don’t know.”
“Mother thought somebody did.”
“Yes.”
“Was he a suspect?”
“Always.”
Brooks wrote something.
“Where is Creed now?”
Vega looked at her.
“We should assume he knows we’re asking.”
“Then let’s stop using phones.”
They ended the call with Helen reluctantly agreeing to travel to a secure location arranged through Brooks—not a police facility.
Before hanging up, I asked one final question.
“Why tell us now?”
Helen did not answer immediately.
“Because Mother called me after she called Chloe.”
My breath caught.
“When?”
“Minutes later.”
“What did she say?”
“That she had made another mistake.”
“What mistake?”
“She trusted Jason.”
Chloe’s face tightened.
I looked at her.
“In what way?”
Helen replied, “Eleanor had been communicating with him.”
Nobody moved.
“How long?”
“Nearly a year.”
Chloe sat hard against a folding chair.
“My husband was talking to Grandma?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“He convinced her he wanted to expose Creed.”
I looked at Brooks.
Jason had claimed he wanted the ledger to buy his way out.
Perhaps both were true.
“When did Mother realize he was lying?”
“Yesterday.”
“What happened?”
“He sent her a photograph.”
“Of what?”
“The walnut box.”
My heart jumped.
“He has it?”
“No.”
“What did he photograph?”
“A replica.”
I frowned.
“Why?”
“To prove he knew what he was looking for.”
“How did he know?”
Helen’s answer came quietly.
“Because Robert showed him.”
I stared at the phone.
“Robert met Jason.”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Before Jason met Chloe.”
Every assumption shifted at once.
Chloe stood.
“No.”
“Ashley,” Helen said, “take me off speaker.”
“No,” Chloe snapped. “I want to hear this.”
Helen stopped.
Chloe stepped closer to the phone.
“My father met Jason before I did?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Robert believed Richard’s son might help finish what Richard failed to do.”
“When?”
“About seven years ago.”
“That was before the fundraiser.”
“Yes.”
“So Dad knew Jason was approaching me.”
“Yes.”
Chloe looked at me.
The pain on her face was different now.
Not betrayal by husband.
Betrayal by father.
“Did Dad tell him to marry me?”
“No.”
“Did he tell him to meet me?”
Helen hesitated.
“Yes.”
Chloe backed away.
I felt suddenly protective of her despite everything.
“Explain.”
“Robert was already sick again,” Helen said. “He knew he might not have many years. Richard had told him Jason wanted out from under Creed’s influence.”
“Jason worked for Creed then?”
“Yes.”
“What kind of work?”
“Research. Property tracing. Family histories.”
“People like us.”
“Yes.”
“Robert thought he could turn him.”
“Yes.”
“And Chloe was what? A test?”
Helen’s silence condemned all of them.
“Helen.”
“Robert thought if Jason became personally connected to the Vance family, he might choose differently.”
I stared at nothing.
My husband had treated my daughter’s life like a moral experiment.
“He introduced them.”
“Indirectly.”
“How?”
“He arranged for both of them to attend the fundraiser.”
Chloe laughed.
The sound was flat.
“So our meet-cute was scheduled by my father.”
“Chloe—”
“No.”
She looked at me.
“Everybody used me.”
I could not disagree.
Jason used her for access.
Robert used her to test Jason.
Eleanor watched from afar.
Richard tracked her.
Creed paid for information.
And I, without knowing any of it, had spent years thinking her irresponsibility was simply a flaw in character.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
Chloe looked surprised.
“For what?”
“For the things I actually did.”
I stepped closer.
“I compared you to Ashley more than I admitted.”
Ashley lowered her eyes.
“I thought pressure would make you steadier.”
Chloe swallowed.
“It didn’t.”
“No.”
I nodded toward the hidden archive.
“And I missed how many people around you were deciding what you should become.”
Her eyes filled.
“You didn’t make me sign the papers.”
“No.”
“You didn’t make me slap you.”
“No.”
“I still did those things.”
“Yes.”
She breathed through it.
Then nodded.
That was the first conversation we had managed without one of us asking the other to erase reality.
Brooks ended Helen’s call.
“We need Creed.”
Vega checked her notes.
“His office?”
“Too obvious.”
“Hawthorne registered address?”
“Also obvious.”
Ashley spoke.
“What about Richard?”
“What about him?”
“If Creed was Ruth’s husband and Richard watched Franklin kill her, they have history.”
Brooks nodded.
“Richard may know how Creed thinks.”
“We have to find Richard first.”
Vega’s expression changed.
“We may not need to.”
Her secure phone displayed a message.
Richard Sterling had surrendered.
Not to local police.
To the FBI field office in Richmond.
Voluntarily.
“He’s asking for Brooks,” Vega said.
Brooks looked genuinely surprised.
“Me?”
“He named you.”
“How does he know me?”
Vega read.
“Through Samuel Dent.”
The dead property appraiser.
Brooks went still.
“You knew Dent,” Ashley said.
Brooks did not answer for a moment.
Then:
“He was a cooperating witness in one of my first financial cases.”
“You investigated Richard?”
“No. Different case.”
“What happened?”
“Dent disappeared from cooperation.”
“He recanted in Richard’s case and died.”
“Yes.”
“Did you believe the accident?”
“No.”
The room changed again.
Brooks had her own thread in this story.
“Why didn’t you say that?” I asked.
“Because until five minutes ago I had no reason to believe it was connected.”
“That seems to be how everyone’s secrets work.”
She accepted the criticism.
We left the hidden chamber after technicians sealed it.
Brooks arranged transport to Richmond.
I insisted on going.
So did Chloe.
Brooks objected.
I told her she could either bring us or spend the drive wondering which vehicle we had followed in.
She relented.
Richard Sterling waited in an interview room behind reinforced glass.
The first thing I noticed was how much he resembled Jason around the eyes.
The second was how exhausted he looked.
Not frightened.
Finished.
He saw Chloe beside me and closed his eyes.
“I’m sorry.”
She did not respond.
Brooks sat across from him.
“You asked for me.”
Richard nodded.
“Samuel Dent trusted you.”
“He trusted many people badly.”
“He trusted you last.”
“What did he tell you?”
“That Martin Creed controlled the appraisal network.”
Brooks leaned forward.
“Dent never gave me Creed.”
“He was afraid.”
“So he died protecting the name.”
“No.”
Richard shook his head.
“He died because I asked him to recant.”
Brooks’s jaw tightened.
“Why?”
“To keep Creed believing I was still useful.”
“You sacrificed my witness.”
“I thought I was protecting him.”
“He died.”
“I know.”
The phrase again.
I was beginning to hate it in every voice.
“What do you want?” Brooks asked.
“To stop my son.”
Chloe stiffened.
“Jason?”
“Yes.”
“Why now?”
“Because Martin gave him access to the final accounts.”
“What final accounts?”
“The money Franklin hid after Ruth began copying records.”
“How much?”
Richard looked at me.
“More than the house ever mattered.”
“How much?”
“Depending on what remains, perhaps eighty million.”
Chloe whispered, “Eighty?”
Richard nodded.
“Spread across trusts and property companies.”
“And Jason wants it.”
“Yes.”
“Then why sell my house?” I asked.
“Because the original trust instrument identifies the beneficial chains.”
“He needs the walnut box.”
“Yes.”
“Does Creed?”
“Yes.”
“For the same reason?”
“No.”
“What does Creed want?”
Richard looked toward Brooks.
“Martin wants every account burned.”
“Destroyed?”
“Released to restitution funds.”
I stared.
“That sounds almost noble.”
“It isn’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because he decides who is guilty.”
“And who gets paid.”
“Yes.”
“So he rebuilt Franklin’s network to destroy it?”
“He infiltrated what remained. Then discovered control was easier than justice.”
That made terrible sense.
Ruth’s husband became the administrator.
Perhaps revenge had slowly turned into ownership.
“Where is Eleanor?” I asked.
Richard looked at me.
“I don’t know.”
“You called her.”
“Yes.”
“You threatened her.”
“No.”
“You frightened her.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“To force her to stop trusting Jason.”
“Did it work?”
“Too late.”
“What did Jason tell her?”
“That he was trying to expose Creed.”
“And she believed him.”
“For months.”
“What changed?”
“She learned he had been paid.”
Chloe looked away.
Richard continued.
“Eleanor contacted me yesterday. First time in seven years.”
“What did she say?”
“That Jason had found a way to access the walnut box.”
“How?”
“The key card.”
Robert’s key card.
I looked toward Brooks.
“But we have the key card.”
Richard shook his head.
“Robert made two.”
Silence.
“Who has the second?”
Richard looked at Chloe.
She frowned.
“Why are you looking at me?”
“Because Robert gave it to you.”
“No, he didn’t.”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“The day he died.”
Chloe’s face went blank.
“I wasn’t there when he died.”
“Not physically.”
“What does that mean?”
“He mailed it.”
I saw memory strike her.
A package.
She whispered, “The birthday card.”
I looked at her.
“What birthday card?”
“Dad sent me a card before he died. It came afterward.”
“What was inside?”
“A little plastic card.”
My heart sank.
“What did you do with it?”
“I thought it was an old hotel key or something.”
“Chloe.”
“I put it in a box with his things.”
“Where is that box?”
She closed her eyes.
“Jason took it.”
Richard lowered his head.
“There.”
The second key card.
Jason had possessed it for years.
“Why hasn’t he used it?” Brooks asked.
“Because he didn’t know where.”
“The storage room.”
“No.”
Richard leaned forward.
“The card doesn’t open Union Station Storage.”
Robert’s note had lied.
Or misdirected.
“Where does it open?”
Richard looked directly at me.
“Your father’s mausoleum.”
I stared.
“Thomas doesn’t have a mausoleum.”
Richard’s expression changed.
“That is what you were told.”
Click here to continue reading: PART 15: My Father’s Grave Was Another Lie, and Inside the Mausoleum Jason Had Already Opened the Door Robert Designed to Stay Closed
I Came Home From Hawaii to Find My Daughter Wearing My Pearls Beside a Door My Key Could No Longer Open
Part 14 of 24
