Chapter 1 - THE SECRET HER MOTHER COULDN'T SPEAK
“Why didn’t anyone tell me?”
Savannah Reed’s voice cracked as she held her mother’s trembling hand.
Margaret Reed tried to answer, but the words wouldn’t come.
For a terrible moment, Savannah thought her mother had forgotten how to speak.
Then Margaret gripped her wrist.
Hard.
“Don’t... trust... Linda.”
Savannah leaned closer.
“I know, Mom. Rebecca told me everything. I’m going to get our company back.”
Margaret’s eyes widened.
She shook her head violently.
“No... police.”
Savannah froze.
“Why not?”
Her mother struggled to lift her right hand. She pointed toward the bedside drawer.
Inside was an old photograph.
Margaret stood beside a younger Linda Whitmore at a company Christmas party. Between them stood a man Savannah had never seen.
Someone had scratched his face out with a sharp object.
On the back, written in Margaret’s unmistakable handwriting, were four words.
He knows what happened.
“Who is he?” Savannah whispered.
Margaret began crying.
Before she could answer, the rehabilitation room door opened.
A nurse entered with a medication tray.
“Visiting hours are over.”
Savannah glanced at the clock.
“That’s impossible. I still have forty minutes.”
The nurse avoided her eyes.
“Administration changed the schedule.”
Savannah immediately understood.
Someone was watching.
She slipped the photograph into her purse, kissed her mother’s forehead, and whispered, “I’m not leaving you here forever.”
As she reached the hallway, Margaret called out.
“Savannah!”
It was the clearest word she had spoken all afternoon.
Savannah turned.
Her mother’s face was pale with terror.
“Driver.”
Savannah stepped back into the doorway.
“What driver?”
Margaret forced out three more words.
“Find... the... driver.”
Then she collapsed against her pillow.
The nurse rushed forward, calling for assistance.
Savannah stood motionless.
Her mother had just given her a clue.
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But what she didn’t know was that the driver she needed to find was already working inside Whitmore Global Holdings.
And he was hiding a fortune of his own.
