Chapter 8 - THE SECRET HER MOTHER TOOK TO THE GRAVE
Delaney reread the message three times.
Her mother.
Damon's father.
Charles Hale.
Somehow, their lives had been connected long before Delaney was born.
"What did he do to her?" she whispered.
Damon didn't answer.
Instead, he called Frank.
"Find everything Margaret Whitfield ever reported about Charles Hale."
Frank nodded and left.
Delaney stared at the photograph of Evelyn.
"We have to help her."
"We will."
"Then why are we standing here?"
"Because rushing into a trap won't bring her home."
Damon's tone was harsh.
Delaney recoiled.
He immediately softened.
"I'm sorry."
She looked away.
"I'm scared too."
Those three words changed something between them.
Damon had spent most of his adult life surrounded by people who feared him.
Delaney was frightened for someone else.
Even now.
Even after everything.
He pulled out the chair beside him.
"Sit. We'll figure this out."
An hour later, Frank returned with a sealed police report from twenty-eight years earlier.
Margaret Whitfield had filed a complaint against Charles Hale while working as a nurse at a private clinic.
The complaint alleged that Hale was paying medical professionals to falsify reports connected to suspicious injuries and deaths.
Margaret had discovered patients being prescribed dangerous combinations of medication without proper justification.
Several had died.
She had tried to expose the scheme.
But before investigators could act, the evidence disappeared.
The complaint was dismissed.
Shortly afterward, she resigned.
Delaney pressed her hand against her mouth.
"My mother tried to stop him."
Frank nodded.
"She also contacted Thomas Bianchi."
Damon stared at him.
"My father?"
"Thomas had business arrangements with Hale. When he discovered what was happening, he threatened to end them and report the evidence."
Damon's expression darkened.
"Three weeks later, he was murdered."
Delaney looked at the old report.
A name caught her attention.
The detective who had originally investigated Margaret's complaint.
Detective Samuel Whitfield.
Her father's name.
Delaney went completely still.
Her father had died in a supposed highway accident when she was eight.
Her mother rarely discussed him.
Damon noticed her expression.
"Delaney?"
She pointed at the document.
"That's my dad."
Frank looked down.
Then opened another folder.
His face changed.
"There's something else."
He placed an old photograph on the table.
It showed Thomas Bianchi, Margaret Whitfield, and Detective Samuel Whitfield standing outside a courthouse.
On the back was a handwritten date.
Three days before Thomas Bianchi's murder.
Beneath the date, someone had written:
If we disappear, protect the children.
Damon stared at the photograph.
Then Delaney looked at her father's signature on the report.
A terrible possibility formed.
"What if my father's accident wasn't an accident?"
Frank said nothing.
That was answer enough.
Then Damon noticed a final document tucked beneath the photograph.
A certified birth record.
Delaney's name appeared at the top.
May you like
But the father's name had been altered.
And the original name beneath it had been deliberately blacked out.
