Chapter 9 - THE LIE ABOUT GENE VIEVE’S CRASH
Prescott looked ten years older.
Lawson closed the study door.
“You knew.”
Prescott did not insult him by pretending otherwise.
“Yes.”
Lawson crossed the room and grabbed his jacket.
Elena stepped between them.
“Not like this.”
“Move.”
“No.”
Prescott did not defend himself.
That made Lawson angrier.
“What happened?”
Prescott swallowed.
“Genevieve called me that night.”
Lawson froze.
“She said someone was following her.”
Lawson remembered the official report.
Rain.
Loss of control.
Guardrail.
Instant death.
Prescott continued.
“She was driving back from St. Vincent. A black SUV stayed behind her for twelve miles.”
“Victor?”
“I didn’t know then.”
“What did you do?”
“I sent a team.”
“You never told me.”
“By the time we arrived, her car was burning.”
Lawson stepped closer.
“You told me she died instantly.”
“I was told she did.”
“By whom?”
“Yates.”
Silence.
Dr. Franklin Yates had been at the hospital.
He had signed Genevieve’s emergency records.
Lawson’s skin went cold.
“She reached the hospital?”
Prescott looked down.
“She was alive when paramedics pulled her out.”
The room disappeared.
Lawson heard Elena whisper something.
He didn’t understand it.
“How long?”
“Forty-two minutes.”
His wife had been alive forty-two minutes.
And he had not been there.
“Why wasn’t I called?”
Prescott’s eyes filled.
“I called your father first.”
Conrad had still been alive then.
Lawson understood before Prescott finished.
Conrad ordered silence until security knew whether the crash connected to the family business.
Image first.
Truth second.
Always.
“Genevieve asked for me?”
“Yes.”
The answer destroyed something.
Prescott continued.
“She also asked for Elena.”
Elena sat down hard.
“Me?”
“She kept saying your name.”
Lawson opened Genevieve’s letter again.
Victor had found the twins.
Her death was not the first thing he took.
“What did Victor take before that?”
Prescott shook his head.
“I don’t know.”
Elena suddenly stood.
“Maya.”
Everyone looked at her.
“Victor helped Yates take my daughter.”
Amelia had entered unnoticed.
Her face went white.
“Take me?”
Elena turned.
“When you were born, Victor was twenty-three and already working with Conrad. Genevieve found payments signed by him.”
Amelia stared at Lawson.
“Your brother stole me?”
“We don’t know yet.”
But they did soon.
Theo recovered archived accounting records.
Victor paid the private adoption agency.
Yates’s brother received money three weeks later.
Victor had helped move Amelia because Conrad wanted Elena’s bloodline tracked without Elena knowing.
Amelia looked sick.
Then she asked one question.
“Why?”
Elena answered.
“Because you were useful.”
Amelia’s expression hardened.
Something changed in her.
Not toward Elena.
Toward the people who had treated her life like inventory.
She turned to Lawson.
“Then we save the twins.”
Lawson nodded.
“And after that?”
Amelia looked toward Genevieve’s letter.
“After that, we make sure Victor Mercer never controls another person again.”
Prescott’s phone rang.
He answered.
His face changed immediately.
“What?”
Lawson stood.
Prescott lowered the phone.
“Victor disappeared.”
“When?”
“Twenty minutes ago.”
“And Yates?”
Prescott looked toward the medical wing.
May you like
“His holding room is empty too.”
Then every light in the estate went out.
