Chapter 4
I stared at the photograph until Emily called my name.
“Daddy?”
I turned it facedown before she could see it.
Naomi noticed.
She picked it up, examined it, and slipped it into an evidence envelope provided by Officer Ramirez.
“Where did that come from?” she asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Did Laura take it?”
“I have no idea.”
The photograph was six years old.
Laura had still been alive.
Mark was married then.
Rebecca had not entered my life until two years after Laura’s death.
At least that was what she had told me.
She claimed we first met at a charity dinner.
She had walked over after seeing me struggle to remove red paint from Emily’s hands.
She had laughed, found a wet towel, and helped us.
Now I wondered if the entire meeting had been arranged.
Officer Ramirez searched the office.
The safe showed no damage.
“Who knew the combination?”
“Me.”
“Anyone else?”
“Laura knew it.”
“Did you ever tell Rebecca?”
“No.”
Naomi looked at the keypad.
“Could someone have watched you enter it?”
“Possibly.”
Emily stood in the doorway.
Her flower-girl dress looked painfully bright against the wreckage.
I took her upstairs and helped her change.
The moment she saw her bedroom, she stopped.
Her drawers were open.
Her clothes had been thrown across the floor.
The framed photograph of Laura beside her bed had been knocked over.
The glass was cracked.
Emily picked it up.
“Why did they break Mommy?”
I sat beside her.
“They broke the frame. They can’t break Mommy.”
She held the picture against her chest.
“Is Rebecca coming back?”
“No.”
“Do you promise?”
“I promise she will never live here again.”
Emily studied my face.
“Are you mad at me because I took her papers?”
I felt something inside me collapse.
I pulled her into my arms.
“You saved us.”
“She said stealing was bad.”
“What you did was not stealing. You found proof that someone was trying to hurt our family.”
“She said you would hate me.”
“I could never hate you.”
“What if she tells a judge I’m bad?”
“You are not bad.”
“But what if the judge believes her?”
I did not give her an easy lie.
I had already trusted too many comforting lies.
“Then we will tell the truth until the judge understands.”
That evening, Naomi arranged for a private security guard to stay outside.
Officer Ramirez took the recorder, the enrollment form, Mark’s phone, and the photograph into evidence.
Mark was released after questioning.
No one had enough evidence to arrest him.
Rebecca and Judith had not yet been found.
The black car was registered to a private security company owned by Judith’s cousin.
At eight that night, Dr. Samuel Lewis called.
“I never wrote that report,” he said.
“Can you prove it?”
“The signature is mine, but the language isn’t. Someone copied my signature from another document.”
“Who had access?”
“My staff. Insurance providers. Anyone who received a signed school form.”
Rebecca had taken Emily to an appointment six months earlier when I was trapped in a board meeting.
She had returned with a routine health form.
I had thanked her.
Dr. Lewis continued.
“The report includes a patient identification number, but it isn’t Emily’s.”
“Whose is it?”
“I’m checking. Daniel, there’s something else. A woman called my office last week pretending to be your assistant. She requested Emily’s complete medical file.”
“Did your office send it?”
“No. My receptionist called your company to confirm. Someone there approved the request.”
“Who?”
“She wrote down the name Mark Hale.”
I closed my eyes.
My own brother had helped Rebecca build a false case against my child.
Naomi took notes.
“Dr. Lewis, we’ll need a sworn statement by morning.”
“You’ll have it.”
After the call, I checked on Emily.
She had fallen asleep in my bed with Laura’s photograph beside her.
Naomi and I returned to the kitchen.
She opened her laptop.
“We need to understand the money.”
“I thought Rebecca wanted Emily gone because she resented her.”
“She may resent her. But resentment doesn’t explain forged medical records, a sealed petition, and stolen trust documents.”
I logged into the company’s financial system.
My access failed.
I tried again.
Account suspended.
I called our information technology director.
He answered with a whisper.
“Daniel, I was about to call you.”
“Why is my account locked?”
“Mark ordered it.”
“He doesn’t have authority to lock the chief executive out.”
“He provided a board resolution.”
“What resolution?”
“One declaring you temporarily unfit to manage company affairs.”
My chair scraped backward.
“That meeting never happened.”
“The document has three signatures.”
“Whose?”
“Mark’s, board member Peter Collins’s, and yours.”
Peter Collins was Rebecca’s father.
My signature had been forged again.
“Restore my access.”
“I can’t without legal approval.”
“You know that document is false.”
“I suspected it. But Mark also sent the board a report stating you had a breakdown at your wedding and threatened several people.”
News traveled quickly.
Rebecca was already changing the story.
Naomi leaned toward the phone.
“This is Naomi Hart, Mr. Hale’s attorney. Preserve every email, login record, and document. Do not delete anything, even if Mark orders it.”
The director agreed.
Then Naomi looked at me.
“They aren’t waiting for the family court petition. They’re moving now.”
“To do what?”
“Take the company.”
My father-in-law had invested in my business during its first year.
After Laura died, his shares passed into Emily’s trust.
Those shares, combined with mine, gave us control.
If I were declared unfit and Emily were placed under another guardian, Mark and the Collins family could control both voting blocks.
The wedding was supposed to make Rebecca appear like the natural guardian.
Sending Emily away would keep her from challenging anything.
“Rebecca didn’t want to marry me,” I said.
“She wanted your name.”
My phone vibrated.
An unknown number had sent me a video.
The recording showed the chaos at the chapel.
Rebecca stood in the hallway crying.
My voice could be heard accusing her of forgery.
The clip had been edited.
Emily’s recording was missing.
Rebecca’s comments about my daughter were missing.
Only my anger remained.
A caption appeared beneath it.
LOCAL BUSINESS OWNER ABANDONS BRIDE DURING MENTAL HEALTH CRISIS.
The video already had thousands of views.
Comments called me cruel.
Unstable.
Dangerous.
Then a second message arrived.
It was from Rebecca.
You can still fix this.
Meet me alone tonight.
Sign the temporary guardianship papers, and I will tell everyone the wedding was postponed.
If you refuse, I will make sure Emily is removed before sunrise.
I showed Naomi.
“It’s a threat,” I said.
“It’s also evidence.”
“I’m going.”
“No.”
“She knows where the trust documents are.”
“And she wants you alone.”
“I’ll wear a recorder.”
“You will not meet her without the police.”
I looked toward the stairs.
“I cannot wait while she builds a case against Emily.”
Naomi was about to answer when the doorbell rang.
The security guard checked the camera.
A woman stood on the porch.
She wore a county identification badge.
Two police officers were behind her.
My stomach dropped.
The woman introduced herself as Melissa Grant from Child Protective Services.
“I have an emergency order,” she said. “We received evidence that Emily Hale may be in immediate danger.”
I looked at Naomi.
“This is what Rebecca meant.”
Melissa handed over the order.
It had been signed less than an hour earlier.
The allegations said I had threatened Rebecca with violence, destroyed my own home, and forced Emily to make a false recording.
I read the final paragraph.
May you like
Pending investigation, Emily was to be placed with an approved temporary caregiver.
The caregiver’s name was Rebecca Collins.
