Jessica ignored my calls.
I understood why.
That did not make it acceptable.
Maya and I left the hospital while Dad argued that we should give Jessica time.
“Time for what?” I asked.
“To learn who she is.”
“She has evidence Linda may kill for.”
“That part concerns me.”
“Wonderful.”
Dad almost smiled.
“Ethan, chasing her angrily won’t help.”
“I’m not angry.”
Maya and Dad both looked at me.
“Fine. I’m angry.”
We caught the earliest flight to San Francisco.
Elena drove south from Sacramento.
Daniel and Rebecca remained with investigators.
Police in California were notified about the safe-deposit box, but the legal situation was complicated. The box had apparently been opened under one of Elena’s old aliases and had not been accessed in years.
Jessica had the key.
But not necessarily authorization.
By the time Maya and I landed, Jessica finally answered.
“Stop calling.”
“No.”
“I’m safe.”
“That isn’t the same as being careful.”
“I didn’t ask you to follow me.”
“You took Elena’s evidence.”
“I protected it.”
“From Linda?”
“From everyone.”
I stopped walking through the airport terminal.
“What does that mean?”
“It means every person in this story thinks they’re entitled to decide what happens next.”
“That includes you.”
“Yes.”
At least she admitted it.
“Where are you?”
“Bank.”
“Which one?”
“No.”
“Jessica.”
“I need to do this alone.”
“Why?”
“Because for eight years, I thought I knew who I was. Then in forty-eight hours I learned my father wasn’t my father, my mother wasn’t my mother, my husband is my brother, and the woman I was taught to hate gave birth to me.”
People moved around me with suitcases and coffee.
I had no answer.
Jessica continued.
“I need one thing that isn’t filtered through Arthur, Elena, Daniel, Maya, Rebecca, or you.”
“The documents.”
“Yes.”
I lowered my voice.
“Then read them.”
Maya looked at me.
I held up a hand.
“But tell me where you are.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because if Linda is following you, you’ll bring her.”
That was fair.
“Then call me when you’re done.”
“I will.”
She ended the call.
Maya stared.
“You agreed?”
“She’s right.”
“About Linda?”
“About all of it.”
We waited.
Three hours.
I spent them in a café near the financial district, watching every person who entered.
Elena arrived shortly after noon.
She looked furious.
“You let her go alone?”
“I didn’t let her do anything.”
“She has the key.”
“Yes.”
“That box contains thirty years of evidence.”
“It also contains her life.”
Elena stopped.
The anger weakened.
“She said that?”
“Essentially.”
My mother sat down.
For a while, none of us spoke.
Then she said, “I made the same mistake with her that I made with you.”
“What?”
“Thinking protection gave me ownership over the truth.”
I looked at her.
“Maybe we all inherited that.”
She smiled sadly.
“From Arthur.”
“Probably.”
My phone rang.
Jessica.
“Where are you?”
“Safe.”
“What did you find?”
Her breathing sounded strange.
“Ethan.”
“What?”
“Victor knew.”
“Knew what?”
“That Elena was my mother.”
“We already knew that.”
“No. I mean he knew what would happen if I ever learned.”
I looked at Elena.
“What did he write?”
“There are letters.”
“From Victor?”
“Yes.”
“To whom?”
“Cole. Linda. Thomas.”
“What do they say?”
Jessica took a breath.
“He never intended me to inherit anything.”
Elena’s face hardened.
“Of course.”
“What did he intend?”
“To use me to invalidate Elena’s claim.”
Maya leaned toward the phone.
“How?”
Jessica continued.
“Victor argued that because Elena supposedly abandoned one child and was declared unstable, she should lose control of every trust interest attached to her descendants.”
“You and me,” I said.
“Yes.”
“So raising you as his daughter let him hide that you were Elena’s.”
“Exactly.”
Victor had not taken Jessica because he wanted an heir.
He had taken her because her existence could be used against the mother who bore her.
“Why call you his daughter at all?”
“Because he needed a legitimate explanation for having me.”
Elena closed her eyes.
Jessica continued.
“There’s more.”
Of course there was.
“What?”
“Victor knew who my biological father was.”
“Daniel Mercer.”
“Yes.”
“What about him?”
“Daniel wasn’t a random donor.”
Elena looked at me.
“He wasn’t a donor at all,” she said quietly.
I stared.
Jessica heard her.
“Mom?”
The word slipped out.
Elena froze.
Jessica froze too.
Neither acknowledged it.
Then Elena said, “Daniel and I were together.”
“I know.”
“No. Not the way you were told.”
I looked between the phone and my mother.
“What does that mean?”
“Elena,” Jessica said, “let me read it.”
Silence.
Then Jessica continued.
“Victor arranged the medical procedure after he discovered Elena was already pregnant.”
I felt the pieces shift.
“He didn’t create the pregnancy.”
“No.”
“He hid it.”
“Yes.”
Elena covered her face.
“Daniel was your father naturally,” I said.
Jessica’s voice broke.
“Yes.”
Victor had altered records, drugged Elena, and constructed a medical story afterward so that even Elena would doubt what had happened.
“How did you not know?” I asked my mother.
“I did know I had been with Daniel. Victor and Pike convinced me the pregnancy couldn’t be his.”
“Why?”
“They lied about dates. Tests. Everything.”
Maya whispered, “Jesus.”
Jessica continued reading.
“Victor wanted Daniel to believe the baby had died.”
Daniel had spent decades believing his daughter had been raised by Victor without knowing she was biologically his.
Or perhaps he learned later.
“Does Daniel know now?” I asked.
“I don't know.”
Elena did.
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Years later.”
“And he still never told Jessica?”
“He promised me.”
Jessica laughed bitterly through the phone.
“Another promise protecting me from my own life.”
Elena flinched.
“I’m sorry.”
“Stop saying that.”
Silence.
Then Jessica said more quietly, “I know.”
A fragile bridge.
Not forgiveness.
But something.
“Where are you?” I asked.
She finally gave us the address.
A private records facility associated with the bank.
We reached her twenty minutes later.
Jessica sat alone in a consultation room surrounded by boxes.
When Elena entered, they stared at each other.
Then Jessica moved aside.
“Sit.”
Elena did.
Jessica placed Victor’s letters between us.
The documents were devastating.
Victor had described Elena’s children as “succession liabilities.”
Me.
Jessica.
Liabilities.
He discussed removing Arthur through financial pressure.
Discrediting Daniel.
Using Cole to influence guardianship proceedings.
Using Pike to construct psychiatric evidence.
Using Thomas for surveillance.
And Linda for infiltration.
“Linda was involved from the beginning,” Maya said.
“Yes,” Jessica answered.
“How young was she?”
“Twenty-six.”
“What was her role?”
Jessica handed her a letter.
Linda had posed as a nurse during one of Elena’s psychiatric evaluations.
Later she posed as a court assistant.
Then as an employee of the trust administrator.
“She didn’t just collect information,” Maya said.
“She altered it.”
Jessica nodded.
“Victor called her his best investment.”
Elena looked sick.
“What else is in the box?”
“Original medical records.”
Jessica handed her a file.
“Your records.”
Elena opened it.
Her hands began shaking.
“What?”
“The doctor’s signature.”
“Pike?”
“No.”
She turned the document toward us.
Another name.
Dr. Samuel Pike had supervised.
But the procedure itself had been signed by a younger physician.
Dr. Linda Barrett.
I stared.
“Linda was a doctor?”
“Apparently.”
Maya searched quickly.
“Linda Barrett held a medical license under her maiden name.”
“What name?”
“Linda Grey.”
Jessica looked up.
“Mr. Grey.”
The name Victor had used for Thomas.
Maybe not for Thomas at all.
Grey had been Linda’s name.
She was the connection Jessica remembered from childhood.
“She performed the procedure on Elena,” Maya said.
“And falsified the records.”
Elena whispered, “She told me my baby died.”
Jessica stared at her.
“You thought I was dead?”
“For three days.”
The room became completely still.
“Then Victor brought you to me.”
“What did he say?”
“That Claudia had adopted you.”
Jessica’s face crumpled.
“So you knew I was alive.”
“Yes.”
“But couldn’t take me.”
“No.”
Jessica stood and walked toward the window.
Elena remained seated.
No one tried to bridge the distance.
Some distances could not be crossed on command.
Maya continued through the box.
Then she found another folder.
“Thomas.”
Inside were surveillance reports.
Decades of them.
Arthur.
Elena.
Daniel.
Me.
Jessica.
Rebecca.
Linda had watched everyone.
Even her own husband.
“She didn’t trust Thomas,” I said.
“No,” Maya replied.
“She trusted nobody.”
At the bottom of the box was a sealed envelope.
Written across it:
IN THE EVENT OF VICTOR MORALES’S DEATH.
Jessica opened it.
Inside was a letter from Victor.
He wrote that if anything happened to him, Raymond Cole was to assume control of the trust operation.
Thomas Barrett would handle enforcement.
And Linda Grey Barrett would retain the archive.
“What archive?” I asked.
Maya kept reading.
Her expression changed.
“Everything.”
“What does that mean?”
“Original recordings. Medical files. Financial ledgers. Blackmail material.”
“Where?”
Victor had written an address.
Portland.
I knew the neighborhood.
Dad lived less than ten minutes away.
Jessica looked at me.
“What?”
“The address.”
She turned the paper.
It belonged to a storage facility I had passed hundreds of times.
Then I recognized something else.
The unit number.
314.
The same number printed on one of the unfamiliar keys from Jessica’s duplicate key ring.
I looked at her.
“You had this key.”
Her face went blank.
“What?”
“The night you opened my safe. There were two keys I didn’t recognize.”
I described one.
Jessica slowly shook her head.
“I never had a storage key made.”
“Then where did it come from?”
“I don’t know.”
We stared at each other.
The duplicate key ring had been in our house for years.
Jessica believed she had created copies of household keys.
Someone had added another.
Someone who had access to our home.
Linda.
And if the key still opened Unit 314, Victor’s archive had been sitting ten minutes from my father all along.
Click here to continue reading: PART 16: Unit 314 Held Victor’s Secret Archive, but Someone Had Reached the Most Dangerous Recording Before We Arrived
My Father Had Never Asked Me for Money Until He Appeared at My Door With a Deadline
Part 15 of 35
