Chapter 10 - My Mother’s Music BoxThe music box had been sitting beneath a Christmas tree and two boxes of childhood photographs for more than a decade.
If it was real.
The statement, supposedly written by Tommy Reyes in 2012, claimed Michael Mitchell had paid him to damage Margaret Ellison's brakes because Michael wanted to destroy Jason's relationship with me and derail a business deal.
According to the document, Jason had no knowledge of the sabotage until after my mother's death.
Television networks ran with it immediately.
BROTHER VS. BROTHER IN BILLIONAIRE DEATH MYSTERY.
NEW EVIDENCE COULD CLEAR JASON MITCHELL.
MICHAEL MITCHELL ACCUSED OF ORDERING FATAL SABOTAGE.
Michael denied everything.
His attorney called the document a fabrication.
The public didn't know whom to believe.
For Jason, confusion was victory.
He didn't need innocence.
He needed doubt.
I sat at my kitchen island watching commentators debate my mother's death like it was entertainment.
Madison entered carrying coffee.
She had been staying in a hotel under private security but visited during daylight.
"Turn it off."
"I need to know what they're saying."
"No, you need sleep."
"I slept."
"Three hours."
Rebecca arrived moments later.
She looked more worried than usual.
"The document is being examined."
"Is it real?"
"Paper appears old enough. Ink testing is inconclusive."
"Signature?"
"Preliminary handwriting analysis says it could be Tommy's."
Madison swore.
I stared at the frozen image of Jason on television.
"He prepared this years ago."
Rebecca looked at me.
"What?"
"He keeps insurance."
I stood.
"He had files on everybody. Bennett. Lena. Vance. Me. My mother."
I pointed at the screen.
"If Tommy was unstable and afraid, Jason would've made sure he had something ready in case Tommy ever talked."
Rebecca's gaze sharpened.
"A contingency confession."
"Exactly."
"Can we prove it?"
I thought about Jason.
His habits.
His obsession with documentation.
His insistence that every important conversation happen in rooms he controlled.
Then I remembered something Madison had said.
The old phone.
"What happened to the phone from his apartment?"
Madison looked confused.
"The one he used after the hearing."
"I didn't take it."
"Did police search the apartment?"
"Yes, but he had removed it by then."
"Why use an old phone?"
Rebecca understood.
"Dedicated line."
"For what?"
"People he didn't want tied to his regular records."
Aaron began working.
Telecommunications subpoenas take time.
We didn't have time.
The grand jury was moving.
Jason's lawyers were aggressively presenting the Tommy statement as exculpatory.
Then Lena called.
"I know the phone."
"What?"
"I bought it."
She explained that four years earlier, Jason ordered her to purchase several prepaid devices through intermediaries.
She kept reimbursement records because accounting questioned the cash expense.
One phone number might still exist in an archived reimbursement email.
Twenty minutes later, she found it.
Investigators subpoenaed carrier records.
The phone had barely been used.
Most calls went to one number.
Robert Dane.
A few went to Tommy Reyes before his death.
And one, three days before Tommy allegedly signed the exonerating statement, went to Harold Vance.
Vance was interviewed again.
His answer changed everything.
Jason had asked him in 2012 to witness a "confession."
"Whose confession?" investigators asked.
"Tommy Reyes."
"What did it say?"
"That Michael ordered the sabotage."
"Was that true?"
Vance lowered his head.
"I don't know."
"Did Tommy sign voluntarily?"
Long silence.
"No."
According to Vance, Tommy was terrified.
Jason had obtained evidence of his drug possession and gambling debts.
He threatened prison.
Then he offered money.
Sign the statement.
Disappear.
Vance notarized it.
Another crime.
Another secret.
Jason's final shield cracked.
But prosecutors wanted more.
They got it from Madison.
Not because she knew about 2012.
Because she knew how Jason thought now.
"He records himself," she told investigators.
"What do you mean?"
"He likes listening to meetings afterward. He says everyone else remembers conversations emotionally, but recordings preserve leverage."
My skin went cold.
"Where?"
"His study."
Police had searched it.
"No recorder found."
Madison shook her head.
"Not the apartment study. The Hamptons house."
A warrant was obtained.
Behind a false panel in Jason's private office, investigators found a secure network storage system.
Thousands of audio files.
Most were business meetings.
Some were conversations recorded without the knowledge of participants.
And buried inside a folder labeled ARCHIVE 12 was a file dated 2012.
Jason.
Tommy.
Vance.
The transcript took hours.
Rebecca let me read the relevant portion.
Tommy's voice:
I'm not saying Mike did it.
Jason:
You're saying what protects you.
Tommy:
You told me to scare her.
Jason:
And you screwed it up.
Tommy:
She died.
Jason:
Yes. Which means you're looking at prison unless we solve the story.
Tommy:
What story?
Jason:
Michael hired you. You sabotaged the car. I knew nothing.
Tommy:
That's not what happened.
Jason:
It's what happened if you want to see your daughter again.
I stopped reading.
That was it.
Not a murder order.
But proof of cover-up.
Proof Jason knew Tommy sabotaged the car.
Proof he fabricated evidence.
Proof he used a child to threaten a frightened addict into taking the blame.
Prosecutors moved.
Jason was arrested at 6:42 the next morning.
The images went everywhere.
Handcuffs.
Dark coat.
Federal building steps.
Reporters shouting.
He kept his head high.
Until he saw me.
I had gone because I needed to.
Not for revenge.
Not even for closure.
I needed to see the moment his money stopped functioning as a shield.
Jason stared across the barricade.
"Claire!"
Officers guided him forward.
"Claire!"
I didn't move.
"You know I didn't mean for her to die!"
The reporters exploded.
His attorney shouted, "Don't speak!"
But Jason kept going.
"I never told Tommy to kill her!"
Every camera captured it.
His face changed when he realized what he had admitted.
Rebecca leaned toward me.
"Well."
For once, I didn't feel like laughing.
Jason disappeared through the doors.
I stood in cold morning air remembering Mom's handwriting.
I am more afraid staying silent will put you in danger.
She had tried to protect me.
For fourteen years, I thought I had failed her because I never saw Jason clearly.
Now I understood something different.
Survival had given me time.
Time to uncover what she couldn't.
The divorce hearing resumed three weeks later.
Jason appeared by video from detention.
His criminal attorney attempted to delay.
Judge Hart refused to freeze the financial case indefinitely.
The evidence of hidden marital and trust assets was overwhelming.
Jason's courtroom arrogance was gone.
Madison wasn't beside him.
No expensive suit.
No whispered threats.
Just a screen.
Judge Hart reviewed hours of testimony.
Then she addressed him.
"Mr. Mitchell, when this proceeding began, you represented your wife as financially dependent, minimally involved in your company, and undeserving of substantial marital assets."
Jason said nothing.
"The evidence suggests those representations were not merely exaggerated."
She looked down at the filings.
"They were fundamentally dishonest."
My heart pounded.
She continued.
"Furthermore, this court has received extensive documentation suggesting assets associated with Mrs. Mitchell's family trust were concealed from her for more than a decade."
Jason's attorney stood.
"Your Honor—"
"I'm speaking."
He sat.
Judge Hart looked at me.
"Mrs. Mitchell."
I stood.
Her expression softened only slightly.
"This court cannot restore fourteen years."
My eyes filled.
"It cannot restore your mother."
I swallowed.
"But it can refuse to reward fraud."
Then she began reading the preliminary financial ruling.
The Manhattan residence.
Mine pending final equitable distribution.
The lake property.
Frozen.
Founder shares traced to disputed trust assets.
Frozen.
Multiple shell-company accounts.
Frozen.
Jason's attempt to remove me from company ownership.
Invalid pending further adjudication.
And then the sentence I had never imagined hearing:
"Mrs. Mitchell appears to possess a substantial independent ownership claim exceeding anything Mr. Mitchell disclosed during this marriage."
I looked at the screen.
Jason stared back.
Months earlier, he had told me I'd be begging on the streets.
Now the court had frozen the fortune he believed made him untouchable.
But before the judge adjourned, Jason leaned toward the camera.
"Claire."
Everyone looked up.
His microphone should have been muted.
It wasn't.
He smiled faintly.
"You still haven't found the original patent."
My heart stopped.
His lawyer grabbed for the controls.
Too late.
Jason continued.
"Without that, Willow belongs to me."
The screen went dark.
Rebecca looked at me.
"What original patent?"
I knew.
Because suddenly I remembered the last birthday gift my mother ever gave me.
A wooden music box.
May you like
The one Jason had tried to throw away eleven years ago.
The one I had hidden in my sister's attic.
