Chapter 6 - THE MAN BEHIND THE PAPERPeter Vale was arrested forty-eight hours later in a motel outside Flagstaff.
He had cash, two passports, four phones, and the arrogant confidence of a man who had escaped consequences often enough to think consequences were for other people.
Investigators found something else in his car.
A photograph of me.
Recent.
Taken outside the rehabilitation clinic I attended three weeks earlier.
When Detective Ruiz told me, every part of my skin went cold.
“So Peter was watching me?”
“Possibly.”
“You said the private investigator—”
“We identified him. He worked for Peter’s consulting firm.”
That connected the last pieces.
My father didn’t personally arrange eleven years of surveillance.
Peter did.
“Why?”
Ruiz sat across from me in Daniel’s office.
I had finally left the hospital and moved into a secured apartment owned by a friend from the Army.
My right arm remained in a sling.
“I think Peter believed you were a threat to more than the Nicole Shaw case.”
“The insurance fraud.”
“Yes.”
“But I didn’t know about it.”
“He couldn’t be certain.”
Daniel slid a document toward me.
“Your father put you on the board of one of his holding companies when you were nineteen.”
I stared at the signature.
It wasn’t mine.
“That’s forged.”
“We know.”
“Why would he do that?”
“To create distance between himself and several transactions.”
I looked at Daniel.
“You’re saying Dad used my name.”
“For at least two companies.”
Anger came so quickly I almost became lightheaded.
While I was training, deploying, moving from state to state, my family had been using me as paperwork.
“Am I liable?”
“Criminally? There’s no evidence you knew. Financially, we’re sorting it out.”
I looked again at the signature.
It was a good imitation.
My father had practiced.
That realization disturbed me more than it should have.
Ruiz continued.
“Peter has requested counsel and hasn’t formally cooperated.”
“Then who sent the Arizona address?”
“We don’t know.”
“Could Hollis?”
“He denies it.”
“Dad?”
“In custody.”
“Mom?”
Ruiz’s expression told me something had changed.
“What did she do?”
“Your mother disappeared.”
I actually thought I’d misheard.
“What?”
“She left the house sometime between midnight and six this morning.”
“She was being watched.”
“Observed, not detained. Until charges were filed, she could leave.”
“Where did she go?”
“Her vehicle was found at Denver International Airport.”
“She flew?”
“No record of her boarding under her name.”
Daniel rubbed his forehead.
“Your family has an unusual relationship with disappearing.”
I ignored him.
“What charges was she facing?”
“Obstruction, evidence tampering, conspiracy possibilities. More depending on what Peter or Hollis says.”
I looked toward the window.
Mother running frightened me more than Dad’s arrest.
Dad’s instinct was to control.
Mom’s was to survive.
And she knew every emotional weakness I had.
“What about Marcus?”
“Still in custody.”
“Has he said anything?”
“Almost nothing.”
That changed later that afternoon.
Marcus asked to see me.
My first response was no.
My second was also no.
Then Daniel said, “His attorney claims he wants to disclose information concerning Diane.”
My mother.
I agreed under conditions.
Police present.
Recorded.
No physical contact.
We met through thick glass at the county detention center.
Marcus entered wearing an orange uniform.
His right eye was bruised.
Not from another inmate, I learned later.
From falling during his arrest.
For the first time in my life, he looked smaller than the room.
He sat.
Picked up the phone.
I did the same.
“You look like hell,” he said.
“So do you.”
He almost smiled.
Then his eyes moved toward my sling.
“Did they fix your shoulder?”
“They fixed what you did.”
His mouth tightened.
“I was drunk.”
“You were cruel.”
“Same thing in our house.”
That sentence surprised me.
“Why did you ask to see me?”
“Mom’s gone.”
“I know.”
“You don’t know where.”
“Neither do you.”
He stared at me.
“Yes, I do.”
My grip tightened around the phone.
“Then tell the police.”
“I want a deal.”
I almost put the receiver down.
“Lily.”
I waited.
“You think Dad ran everything.”
“I know he covered up Nicole’s death.”
“He did.”
“You were driving.”
Marcus looked down.
“Yes.”
It was the first time I heard him say it.
Not through Hollis.
Not through reports.
Marcus.
“I killed her.”
My throat tightened.
“I don’t know if I killed her instantly or if she could’ve lived. I’ve asked myself that every day for nineteen years.”
“Not enough to tell the truth.”
“No.”
“Not enough to stop attacking people.”
He looked at my shoulder again.
“No.”
I hated his agreement more than excuses.
“What do you want?”
“Mom is worse than Dad.”
There it was again.
ALAN ISN’T THE WORST.
“Explain.”
“Dad wanted to protect me after the crash. Mom wanted to protect what the family could become.”
“What does that mean?”
“She kept records. Everyone Dad paid. Everyone Peter bribed. Every claim.”
“Why?”
“Insurance.”
“Blackmail,” I corrected.
Marcus nodded.
“She called it security.”
A memory surfaced.
My mother always kept two phones.
I assumed one belonged to the real estate business.
“She blackmailed Hollis?”
“Eventually. Peter too.”
“And Dad knew?”
“Some.”
“Some?”
“Dad thought Peter worked for him.”
Marcus gave a bitter laugh.
“Peter worked for Mom.”
My family tree had apparently been constructed entirely from knives pointed at other people’s backs.
“Where is she?”
Marcus glanced toward the camera.
“Lake house.”
“We don’t own a lake house.”
“Exactly.”
“Where?”
“Lake Granby. Registered under a trust Peter created.”
“Why would she go there?”
“Because that’s where she keeps the originals.”
“The originals of what?”
“Everything.”
My heart beat harder.
“Marcus, why tell me?”
He looked at me for a long moment.
“Because she was going to let me take the fall for Nicole.”
“You did cause the crash.”
“I know.”
His voice rose.
“I know that, Lily. But she’s telling her attorney Dad and I forced her to cooperate. That she was terrified of us.”
“Maybe she was.”
Marcus laughed.
“Mom?”
Then his face changed.
“You remember when your dog disappeared?”
I froze.
I had been fourteen.
Charlie.
A golden retriever who slept outside my room every night.
My parents told me he escaped through an open gate.
I searched for him for weeks.
“What about Charlie?”
Marcus swallowed.
“I got angry at you one day. Told Mom I wanted to scare you. I said we should take Charlie somewhere overnight.”
My blood went cold.
“She took him.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know.”
“Marcus.”
“I swear. I asked the next day. She said the problem was handled.”
“What happened to my dog?”
“I don’t know.”
My eyes burned.
“She told me if I ever contradicted her about Nicole, I’d disappear just as easily.”
For once Marcus looked genuinely afraid.
I wanted to dismiss him.
Then I remembered the mother who laughed when he stabbed me.
She hadn’t been horrified.
She had been entertained.
Maybe Marcus wasn’t the only monster she had created.
Maybe he was also the first.
“You said she keeps originals at Granby.”
“Yes.”
“Anything else?”
“A gun.”
“Whose?”
“Hollis’s old service pistol.”
“Why does she have that?”
“Ask her.”
My pulse jumped.
Something in his tone mattered.
“Marcus.”
He leaned closer to the glass.
“The crash wasn’t the first time Mom used Hollis.”
I waited.
He spoke quietly.
“A man named Kevin Dorsey disappeared in 2005.”
The name hit somewhere distant in my memory.
Our neighbor.
He lived two houses down.
Moved suddenly when I was ten.
At least, that was what Mom said.
“What about him?”
Marcus looked at me.
“He didn’t move.”
That night, police obtained a warrant for the Granby property.
Teams headed north.
I was ordered to remain in Denver.
For once, I complied.
At 11:42 p.m., Ruiz called.
“We found the house.”
“And Mom?”
“Gone.”
“Documents?”
“Hundreds.”
“What about Kevin Dorsey?”
Silence.
“Ruiz?”
“We found a box with his name.”
My stomach tightened.
“What was in it?”
“Photographs, financial documents, and an old police report.”
“About what?”
“A domestic disturbance at your house.”
I remembered nothing.
Ruiz continued.
“Dorsey reported hearing a child screaming.”
I stopped breathing.
“What child?”
“The report doesn’t specify.”
“Who responded?”
I already knew.
“Deputy Frank Hollis.”
Of course.
“And the complaint?”
“Closed as unfounded.”
“Two years before Nicole?”
“Yes.”
My childhood, which I thought I understood, was opening like a trapdoor.
“What happened to Dorsey?”
“We don’t know.”
Then Ruiz added:
“But Lily, your mother kept a map.”
“A map of what?”
“Properties.”
“How many?”
“Twelve.”
May you like
“And?”
“One has Kevin Dorsey’s name written beside it.”
Related Stories
