Chapter 6 - HE CAME FOR MY DAUGHTERPolice did not treat Dad’s words as an idle threat.
That frightened me more than if he had.
We were sitting in his office the morning after my meeting with Dad when I asked the question.
“Did Daniel hire a private investigator?”
Thomas removed his glasses.
“Yes.”
I stared at him.
“How long were you going to keep that from me?”
“Until I could verify what he found.”
“My father knew.”
“Apparently.”
“Which means everybody knows what Daniel was doing except me.”
“That isn’t fair.”
“Isn’t it?”
Thomas sighed.
“No.”
He opened a locked cabinet behind his desk.
Inside was a black document box.
My name was written across the front.
Sarah Hayes.
Seeing it made my stomach twist.
Thomas placed it on the table.
“Daniel hired an investigator named Michael Crane three months before his surgery.”
“Why?”
“Initially because of the missing loan money.”
“And then?”
“He found other things.”
The box contained photographs.
Bank statements.
Property records.
Corporate filings.
Pictures of Dad meeting strangers in parking lots.
Madison entering banks.
Kaylee carrying envelopes from her title office.
I spread everything across the table.
“What am I looking at?”
“Your father’s company wasn’t simply failing.”
Thomas pointed to several invoices.
“It was being stripped.”
“By whom?”
“Richard.”
Dad had been transferring profitable projects to newly created companies controlled by associates.
His original business absorbed losses.
The new companies collected revenue.
Creditors saw an insolvent construction firm.
Dad kept the money elsewhere.
“Fraud?”
“Potentially.”
“Daniel discovered this?”
“Part of it.”
I found a photograph.
Dad shaking hands with a man outside a warehouse.
“Who is he?”
“Gavin Rourke.”
“Should I know that name?”
“He owns a private lending company.”
That sounded innocent.
Thomas’s expression told me it wasn’t.
“What kind of lending?”
“The kind people use when banks stop saying yes.”
My father had borrowed from dangerous people.
Not criminals, necessarily.
But aggressive private lenders who secured loans against property.
“How much?”
“At least two million dollars.”
I stared at him.
“And Dad used my house as collateral?”
“He tried.”
A sick realization struck me.
“If the trust didn’t exist…”
“The lender might have advanced funds.”
“And if Dad couldn’t repay?”
“You could have lost the property.”
I felt suddenly cold.
He had not merely stolen my house for himself.
He had intended to gamble it.
The home where Daniel and I painted the nursery.
Where he proposed to me in the kitchen because he burned the expensive dinner he had planned.
Where his coffee mug still sat in the back cabinet because I could not bring myself to move it.
Dad would have risked all of it.
“What did Daniel plan to do with this investigation?”
“He wanted your father to repay the money and stop.”
“That simple?”
“At first.”
“And later?”
Thomas looked at me.
“He wanted you protected.”
The investigator’s final report ended two days before Daniel entered the hospital.
One paragraph was highlighted.
Subject has repeatedly discussed daughter Sarah’s property with associates. On two occasions, subject referred to the Hayes residence as “our insurance policy.”
I read the sentence twice.
Our insurance policy.
My house.
Daniel’s house.
Dad had already been talking about it.
“Why didn’t Daniel go to police?”
“He was waiting for complete evidence.”
“He died first.”
“Yes.”
A knock interrupted us.
Thomas’s assistant entered.
“There’s someone asking for Sarah.”
“Who?”
“She says she’s Madison Bennett.”
My body went rigid.
Thomas stood.
“She’s here?”
The assistant nodded.
“She says it’s urgent.”
Thomas looked at me.
“No.”
But I surprised him.
“Let her in.”
Madison entered two minutes later wearing oversized sunglasses, jeans, and a baseball cap.
Nothing like the polished woman who had laughed on my porch.
She looked terrified.
“I didn’t know where else to go.”
Thomas remained standing.
“You have counsel?”
“My attorney told me not to come.”
“Then you should listen to your attorney.”
Madison looked at me.
“Richard knows Kaylee talked.”
“Dad knows everything eventually.”
“No, Sarah. You don’t understand.”
She removed her sunglasses.
There was a bruise along her cheekbone.
I stared.
“What happened?”
She touched it instinctively.
“He thinks I recorded him.”
“Did you?”
“No.”
“Did he hit you?”
Her eyes filled.
“He shoved me into the kitchen counter.”
Thomas reached for his phone.
“You need police.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
Madison panicked.
“No police.”
I almost laughed from disbelief.
“You helped forge my signature and now you’re afraid to call police?”
“I know how that sounds.”
“Do you?”
She sat down.
“I was stupid.”
“You laughed when my water broke.”
Her face crumpled.
“I know.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
“Yes, you do.”
She stared at her hands.
Finally:
“Because I wanted Richard to choose me.”
The answer was pathetic.
And somehow believable.
Madison explained that when she married Dad two years earlier, she became obsessed with proving she belonged.
Dad complained constantly about me.
Sarah doesn’t respect me.
Sarah thinks Daniel’s better than me.
Sarah inherited everything while I’m drowning.
Madison supported him.
Encouraged him.
Eventually participated.
“He said the house was practically his anyway,” she whispered.
“How?”
“He said he paid for your college. Helped with your wedding. That parents invest in children and eventually children owe them.”
I felt physically ill.
“That’s why he thought my house belonged to him?”
“He thinks everything belongs to him.”
Madison looked toward the door.
“I didn’t understand how bad the money situation was until last month.”
“What happened?”
“I found paperwork.”
“What paperwork?”
“Loan documents.”
Thomas leaned forward.
“From Rourke Capital?”
Her eyes widened.
“You know?”
“Yes.”
She swallowed.
“Richard owes them more than you think.”
“How much?”
“Almost four million.”
Thomas went still.
I whispered, “Four?”
“They added penalties.”
Madison reached inside her purse.
Thomas immediately said, “Slowly.”
She removed a USB drive.
“I copied his files.”
Thomas stared at it.
“What’s on there?”
“Everything.”
“Why bring it here?”
“Because Richard is planning to leave.”
My heart jumped.
“Leave where?”
“I don’t know. He moved money yesterday.”
“How much?”
“About six hundred thousand dollars.”
Thomas stood and walked toward his phone.
Madison grabbed my wrist.
I flinched.
She immediately let go.
“Sorry.”
“What?”
“Sarah, he’s blaming you.”
“For what?”
“Everything.”
Her voice dropped.
“He said if you hadn’t involved Thomas, he could have fixed it.”
Of course.
“And?”
“He said he needed leverage.”
“What kind of leverage?”
Madison began crying.
“I don’t know exactly.”
“Madison.”
“He asked where Grace was.”
The room became silent.
I stopped breathing.
“What?”
“He asked which house you were staying in. Whether Margaret still takes the baby to the pediatrician on King Street.”
I stood so quickly my chair fell backward.
Thomas was already on the phone.
“What else did he say?”
Madison wiped her face.
“He said once you remembered what you had to lose…”
May you like
Her voice cracked.
“…you’d finally learn to negotiate.”
