Chapter 7 - REBECCA DISAPPEARED
Rebecca was missing for three hours.
The longest three hours of my life.
Police found her car in an office garage.
Her purse was under the driver’s seat.
Phone smashed nearby.
Security footage showed her walking toward the elevator at 6:12 p.m.
Then the camera feed cut.
At 6:17, a black SUV left the garage.
Same model as the photograph sent to me.
I sat inside Claire’s office while detectives coordinated with state police.
My parents waited in another room.
Dalton was with them.
Nobody discussed the wedding.
Nicole had retained a criminal defense attorney.
Graham Warren had disappeared from his downtown office.
His representatives claimed he was traveling.
Of course.
At 9:43 p.m., Rebecca called me.
I answered so quickly I nearly dropped the phone.
“Sierra?”
She sounded groggy.
“Where are you?”
“I don’t know.”
“Are you hurt?”
“No. I don’t think so.”
“Can you see anything?”
“A road.”
“Are you in a car?”
“No.”
She began crying.
“They left me.”
“Where?”
“Parking lot. Some church.”
Police traced the call.
She was found twenty-two minutes later forty miles outside the city.
Alive.
Disoriented.
No obvious serious injuries.
She remembered entering the elevator.
Then a man asking whether she was Rebecca Lewis.
Then a cloth over her mouth.
After that, fragments.
A voice.
Male.
Older.
“He said something about your grandfather,” she told me later at the hospital.
“What?”
“He said the Bennetts should have stayed quiet thirty years ago.”
That pointed directly at Graham.
Then:
“And Sierra?”
“Yes?”
“He asked me where you keep the original deed.”
I frowned.
“It’s electronically recorded.”
“I told him I didn’t know.”
“Good.”
“He said somebody knows.”
“Who?”
She swallowed.
“Your mother.”
I turned toward Mom.
She was standing near the hospital doorway.
Her face changed.
“What does he mean?”
Mom looked away.
“Margaret.”
Dad’s voice sharpened.
“What did you do?”
She finally spoke.
“When Sierra bought the house, I kept the closing folder.”
“Why?”
“She left it at our place.”
“Mom.”
“There’s something inside it.”
“What?”
“A letter from Grandpa.”
My grandfather had been dead for nine years when I bought the colonial.
“That makes no sense.”
“He gave me the letter before he died.”
“For me?”
“Yes.”
“Why did you put it in the house file?”
“Because it referenced the property.”
My stomach tightened.
“What property?”
She shook her head.
“Not the colonial specifically.”
“Then what?”
“Land.”
Grandpa Bennett had owned land in the same neighborhood decades earlier.
Before development.
Before the colonial subdivision existed.
One parcel had been sold to a shell company.
The money trail later became evidence against Graham Walsh.
According to Mom, Grandpa believed Walsh had hidden cash through several real estate purchases.
One of the old parcels eventually became the lot where my colonial stood.
I stared.
“So Graham cares about the land?”
“Maybe.”
“Thirty years later?”
Dad suddenly understood.
“No.”
We all looked at him.
“He doesn’t care about the land.”
“What?”
“He cares about what Grandpa buried there.”
Silence.
Mom whispered:
“Robert.”
Dad looked sick.
“Dad told me once that he kept copies.”
“Copies of what?”
“The Walsh records.”
My heartbeat accelerated.
“He buried evidence?”
“Maybe.”
“Where?”
“I thought he was joking.”
“Where?”
Dad looked at me.
“Under the old foundation marker.”
My colonial had been renovated before I bought it.
The original foundation marker remained inside the basement wall.
The same basement where Dalton found Nicole’s safe.
Everyone went quiet.
They hadn’t chosen the house because Dalton liked the neighborhood.
Nicole’s family had been trying to gain permanent control of a property tied to evidence against her father.
The wedding.
The fake inheritance story.
The option memorandum.
The business.
The deed.
Everything gave them reasons to treat the property as Dalton’s until it legally became inaccessible to me.
“Police need to search the basement again,” Claire said.
They did.
Behind the original foundation marker, officers found a rusted metal container.
Inside:
Waterproof bags.
Microfilm.
Photocopies.
Ledger pages.
Grand jury notes.
Thirty-year-old evidence.
Enough to explain why Graham Walsh had been convicted.
And potentially enough to show he had hidden assets after prison.
But one item was newer.
Much newer.
A photograph.
Taken maybe ten years ago.
Grandpa Bennett.
Graham Warren.
And my father.
Standing together.
I stared at Dad.
He went white.
“You knew Graham after prison.”
“No.”
“The picture says otherwise.”
“I met him once.”
“When?”
“After he contacted me.”
“Why?”
“To make peace.”
I laughed bitterly.
“Did peace involve my money?”
“No.”
“Dalton?”
“No.”
“Then why is there a photograph hidden with Grandpa’s evidence?”
Dad looked genuinely confused.
“I’ve never seen that picture.”
Mom stared at him.
Then Rebecca, still weak from sedation, whispered:
“Sierra.”
“What?”
“The man in the SUV.”
“What about him?”
“I remember his ring.”
My chest tightened.
“What ring?”
“Gold. Black stone.”
Dad slowly lowered his hand.
On his right pinky was a gold ring with a black onyx stone.
The room went silent.
Rebecca stared at it.
Then at him.
May you like
“That’s the ring.”
My father stopped breathing.
