Chapter 6
Rebecca’s attorney asked for a recess.
The judge denied it.
“No one is leaving this courtroom until I understand why a seven-year-old child was used in a financial scheme.”
Mark stared at Rebecca.
She refused to look at him.
Officer Ramirez remained near the door.
Naomi requested permission to examine the contract.
The judge gave her a copy.
I read over Naomi’s shoulder.
The agreement was dated eight months earlier.
It promised Rebecca twelve million dollars and ownership of my house if she married me, obtained temporary guardianship over Emily, and supported a petition declaring me mentally incompetent.
Mark’s signature appeared at the bottom.
So did Judith’s.
Rebecca’s signature appeared on every page.
Her claim that Mark had forced her began falling apart before she could speak again.
The judge addressed her.
“Did you sign this contract?”
Rebecca looked at her attorney.
He whispered, “Answer only the question.”
“Yes.”
“Were you threatened?”
“I was under pressure.”
“What kind of pressure?”
“Mark said Daniel would never truly love me while Emily lived in the house.”
“That is not legal pressure.”
Rebecca’s voice cracked.
“You don’t understand what it was like.”
The judge’s eyes became colder.
“No, Ms. Collins. I do not understand agreeing to have a child falsely diagnosed and removed from her father.”
Rebecca began crying.
Judith remained still.
She did not comfort her daughter.
Mark laughed from across the room.
It was not a happy sound.
“You wanted the money,” he said.
His attorney told him to be quiet.
Rebecca turned on him.
“You told me Daniel had already stolen what belonged to you.”
“Because he did.”
I stood before Naomi could stop me.
“What did I steal?”
The judge ordered me to sit.
Mark leaned forward despite his attorney’s warning.
“Everything.”
“You own twenty percent of the company.”
“I built that company with you.”
“You joined four years after Laura and I started it.”
“You made me an employee while she became an owner.”
“She invested her inheritance when nobody else believed in us.”
“She controlled you.”
“She protected our daughter.”
Mark’s eyes filled with hatred.
“She made sure I would always be beneath you.”
I finally understood that his resentment had not begun with Rebecca.
It had been growing for years.
Every promotion had felt like an insult because he wanted my position.
Every act of help had become proof that I considered him weak.
Laura had seen it before I did.
The judge ordered Mark removed after he continued shouting.
As officers led him out, he looked at Rebecca.
“Tell them whose idea the accident was.”
The courtroom became silent.
Rebecca’s face drained of color.
My hands went numb.
The judge demanded order.
Officer Ramirez followed Mark into the hallway.
Rebecca’s attorney asked for another recess.
This time, the judge granted fifteen minutes.
I could not move.
Naomi knelt beside me.
“Daniel, breathe.”
“He said accident.”
“We don’t know what he meant.”
“He meant Laura.”
“We cannot assume that yet.”
Across the room, Rebecca whispered furiously to Judith.
Judith slapped her.
The sound echoed through the courtroom.
Rebecca stared at her mother.
“You said he would never talk.”
Judith grabbed her arm.
“Be quiet.”
A court officer separated them.
Naomi heard every word.
So did the judge, who had not yet left the bench.
“Bring both women into separate rooms,” she ordered.
Rebecca began screaming.
“You can’t arrest me! I didn’t touch the car!”
I stopped breathing.
Judith closed her eyes.
Rebecca realized what she had admitted.
Officer Ramirez returned at that exact moment.
He heard it.
“Ms. Collins,” he said, “do not say anything else without your attorney.”
Rebecca covered her mouth.
The family court hearing was suspended.
The judge terminated the temporary transfer order and barred Rebecca, Judith, and Mark from any contact with Emily.
She also referred the forged evidence to the district attorney.
Emily would remain with me.
But I barely heard the ruling.
All I could think about was Laura’s car.
The police took Rebecca and Judith to the station for questioning.
Neither was arrested immediately.
Mark had been detained for financial fraud after investigators found company records in his vehicle.
Those records included forged resolutions, hidden accounts, and transfers totaling more than three million dollars.
The officers had also found the missing trust binder.
That afternoon, Ramirez met me at the station.
“We reopened Laura’s accident investigation.”
“What did Rebecca mean?”
“She has refused to answer.”
“What did Mark say?”
“He asked for immunity.”
“From what?”
“He hasn’t specified.”
I wanted to break through the interrogation-room door.
Ramirez kept his voice steady.
“If we push without evidence, he may stop talking. Let us work.”
“Laura has been dead for three years.”
“I know.”
“My daughter may have lived with people connected to her death.”
“I know.”
Those words broke something in me.
For two years, Rebecca had eaten at our table.
She had tucked Emily into bed.
She had stood beside me on the anniversary of Laura’s death and held my hand while I cried.
If she knew anything about the accident, every comforting word had been an act.
Naomi drove Emily and me to Olivia’s house.
Olivia was Laura’s older sister.
She opened the door and pulled us both into her arms.
When she heard about the journal page, she went silent.
“There’s something I never told you,” she said.
My exhaustion disappeared.
“What?”
“Laura called me the night before she died.”
“What did she say?”
“She thought Mark was stealing from the company.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“She made me promise to wait until she had proof.”
“And after she died?”
“I found nothing. Then you were barely surviving. Emily stopped speaking for weeks. I convinced myself Laura had been wrong.”
“Did she mention Rebecca?”
“No. But she mentioned a woman.”
“What woman?”
“Laura said Mark was working with someone whose family had political connections. She didn’t know the woman’s name.”
Judith’s brother had been a state senator.
Her cousin owned the security company that helped her escape the chapel.
Rebecca’s family had exactly the connections Laura described.
Olivia began crying.
“I should have told you.”
“Yes,” I said.
The honesty hurt both of us.
“I should have told you,” she repeated.
I looked at Emily.
She was asleep on Olivia’s sofa, still holding Laura’s photograph.
“We cannot change what we missed. We can only tell the truth now.”
Olivia wiped her face.
“There may be proof.”
“Where?”
“Laura kept a safety deposit box.”
“I closed it after she died.”
“Not the one at your bank. She opened another under her maiden name.”
“How do you know?”
“She gave me a key.”
“Do you still have it?”
Olivia disappeared upstairs.
She returned with a small brass key and an envelope.
Laura’s handwriting was on the front.
For Daniel, if anything happens to me.
My knees almost gave way.
“You had this for three years?”
“I found it last month while moving. I was going to give it to you after the wedding because I didn’t want to ruin your happiness.”
My voice came out sharp.
“My happiness was a lie.”
“I know.”
I opened the envelope.
Inside was the address of a bank across town and a handwritten code.
Below it, Laura had written one sentence.
Do not trust Mark, even if he cries.
We called Officer Ramirez.
He met us at the bank with a warrant.
The manager led us into a private room.
Inside the safety deposit box were copies of financial records, a flash drive, and another journal.
There was also a sealed letter for Emily.
Ramirez took custody of the evidence.
He allowed me to read the first page of the journal.
Laura had discovered Mark moving company funds into shell accounts.
Peter Collins, Rebecca’s father, appeared in several transfers.
On the final written page, Laura described following Mark to a hotel.
He met a young woman there.
Laura recognized her from a photograph on Peter Collins’s desk.
Her name was Rebecca.
The entry ended with a sentence that made the room tilt.
May you like
Mark knows I found them.
He says if I tell Daniel, Emily will grow up without a mother.
