Chapter 7
Diane had a daughter.
That was the secret no one had mentioned.
Her name was Rebecca.
She was Ryan’s older sister.
According to Ryan, Rebecca disappeared at seventeen, shortly before Victor’s arrest.
Diane always believed Dad knew what happened to her.
Dad denied it.
“I met Rebecca twice,” he said. “She worked at the company during the summer. Then she stopped coming.”
“Did she know about the stolen money?”
“She may have.”
Detective Torres searched the old case files.
Rebecca had not been reported missing.
Diane told relatives she had run away.
There was no police investigation.
Then Torres found a sealed statement from Victor’s trial.
The witness’s name had been removed for protection.
That witness gave prosecutors the records proving Victor stole from his employees.
Dad had not discovered the fraud alone.
Someone inside Victor’s family had helped him.
“Rebecca,” I said.
Dad nodded slowly.
“She came to me with copies of the accounts. She was terrified of her parents.”
“You knew?”
“I promised the prosecutor I would protect her identity.”
“What happened after the trial?”
“She entered a witness protection program.”
The message on Lily’s wall suddenly made sense.
Diane had discovered that Rebecca was alive.
She believed my father had taken her daughter away.
Now she wanted to take his granddaughter.
But Diane was in jail.
Daniel and Ryan were also locked up.
Holloway was under federal protection.
“Who stole the music box?” I asked.
Torres did not know.
Then Dad remembered a name from the old company.
Paul Sutter.
Paul had been Victor’s accountant.
He was questioned but never charged.
He later testified that he knew nothing about the missing money.
Police searched his current address.
The house was empty.
Neighbors said he had left with a suitcase that morning.
His fingerprints were found in Lily’s bedroom.
A traffic camera showed his car heading north.
The music box might contain the password to the overseas account.
If Paul reached the border, the money could disappear.
But I cared about something else.
The message promised an exchange.
One daughter for another.
Diane did not want only the money.
She wanted Rebecca.
Federal officials contacted her through the witness protection program.
Rebecca was forty-three now.
She had a husband, two sons, and a new name.
When she learned what Diane had done, she agreed to speak with investigators by video.
I watched from another room.
Rebecca looked like Ryan around the eyes.
But there was warmth in her face that he no longer had.
“My mother will never stop,” she said. “She believes love means ownership.”
Torres asked about Paul.
“He was obsessed with her. He would do anything she asked.”
“Would he hurt Lily?”
Rebecca’s expression darkened.
“He helped my father threaten me when I tried to expose them.”
She explained that Paul had once locked her in a basement for two days.
Diane brought food and begged her to remain silent.
When Rebecca refused, Diane told her she was no longer her daughter.
Dad helped Rebecca escape before the trial.
Diane never forgave either of them.
Torres asked Rebecca to contact Paul.
She refused at first.
Then she saw Lily sitting beside me through the open door.
“I’ll do it.”
The call lasted less than a minute.
Rebecca told Paul she was willing to exchange herself for Lily’s music box.
Paul laughed.
“You always were dramatic.”
“I know what Diane wants.”
“She wants her family restored.”
“She tried to murder her daughter-in-law.”
“She was correcting a mistake.”
Rebecca kept him talking while police traced the call.
He was at an abandoned motel near the interstate.
Officers surrounded the building.
Paul was arrested in the parking lot.
The music box was in his suitcase.
No child had been kidnapped.
The message had been a threat meant to frighten us into producing Rebecca.
Inside the music box, police found a thin strip of paper.
It contained an account number and a coded phrase.
The overseas bank froze the money.
More than nine million dollars would eventually be returned to the families Victor and Diane had robbed.
For the first time, the case seemed complete.
Then Paul asked to speak with me.
Against Maya’s advice, I listened through the glass.
Paul sat with his hands cuffed to the table.
“Ryan didn’t marry you only for revenge,” he said.
“I’ve read the letters.”
“You haven’t read the letter he kept.”
He told officers to search a safe inside his motel room.
They found one sealed envelope addressed to me.
The handwriting belonged to Ryan.
I opened it.
Claire, if you are reading this, my mother’s plan has failed.
I did approach you because she told me to.
But I did not expect to love you.
I kept waiting for the right moment to confess.
Then Lily was born, and the truth became impossible.
I wanted to stop, but my mother knew what I had done.
She said she would destroy all of us.
The final line was written in darker ink.
If Diane is arrested, do not trust the evidence against me. She has prepared someone to take my place.
I read the sentence twice.
Then Torres received a call from the jail.
May you like
Ryan Carter had been found unconscious in his cell.
Someone had tried to kill him.
