Chapter 5 - TWELVE MILLION DOLLARSFreedom was louder than Daniel remembered.
The coffee maker was loud.
The garbage truck was loud.
Emma was astonishingly loud.
At 6:04 the morning after Daniel came home, she jumped onto the guest-room bed.
“Daddy!”
Daniel bolted upright.
For half a second, he thought a corrections officer had called count.
Then Emma landed on his stomach.
He groaned.
“You awake?”
“I am now.”
“Mommy makes pancakes on Saturdays.”
“It’s Friday.”
Emma considered this.
“Then we should practice.”
Daniel laughed for the first time without pain in years.
They ruined six pancakes.
Rachel came downstairs to smoke curling from the skillet.
She stopped in the doorway.
Daniel stood at the stove in borrowed sweatpants.
Emma wore pancake batter on her nose.
“Morning,” Daniel said.
Rachel stared at the mess.
“I leave you two alone for twenty minutes.”
Emma whispered loudly, “Daddy burned breakfast.”
“Traitor.”
For a moment they were a family again.
Then Rachel’s phone rang.
Samuel Walsh.
Reality returned.
At ten, Daniel and Rachel sat inside a conference room with federal investigators.
Twelve million dollars had moved through shell companies linked to Cross Manufacturing.
The theft had been going on for almost five years.
Ethan was responsible for some of it.
But not all.
An FBI financial-crimes investigator named Lena Ortiz placed photographs on the table.
“Do you recognize these men?”
Daniel examined them.
One was unfamiliar.
The second wasn’t.
“Victor Hale.”
Rachel looked at him.
“Who?”
“Your father’s former CFO.”
Rachel frowned.
“Dad fired him.”
“Exactly.”
Ortiz leaned forward.
“When?”
Daniel thought.
“About six months before Richard died.”
“Reason?”
“He suspected Hale was manipulating vendor payments.”
Ortiz nodded.
“We believe Hale established shell companies and submitted fraudulent supplier invoices. Ethan helped authorize them.”
Rachel’s face went pale.
“So Ethan didn’t create the scheme.”
“No.”
“He joined it.”
“Yes.”
Daniel stared at the photographs.
“Where is Hale?”
“We don’t know.”
Samuel Walsh said, “And that’s a problem.”
Ortiz nodded.
“Hale disappeared two years ago.”
Daniel immediately remembered the sedan outside the house.
“Rachel.”
She saw his expression.
“What?”
“Last night, did you see a black car?”
“No.”
Daniel turned to Ortiz.
“We might be watched.”
The investigator’s expression sharpened.
“Why didn’t you mention that sooner?”
“Because yesterday I thought every black sedan looked suspicious.”
Ortiz stood.
“Describe it.”
Security cameras from a neighbor confirmed Daniel’s concern.
A dark Ford sedan had parked across from the Mercer house for nearly two hours.
The license plate was stolen.
Daniel felt sick.
His first full day home and his family was already in danger.
“I should leave,” he told Rachel.
“No.”
“If someone’s watching me—”
“They’re watching us because of Cross Manufacturing.”
“I brought this back into your life.”
Rachel stared at him.
“No, Daniel. Ethan brought it into our lives. My mother helped hide it. You helped hide it.”
The words hurt.
But they were true.
“We’re done hiding.”
She took his hand.
“We tell the truth.”
Ethan lasted thirty-six hours before asking for a deal.
Daniel refused to attend the interview.
Rachel went.
She needed to hear it herself.
Her brother sat handcuffed to a table.
“You look tired,” Rachel said.
Ethan laughed.
“You look judgmental.”
“I learned from Mom.”
He looked away.
Rachel sat opposite him.
“Who is Victor Hale?”
Ethan’s humor disappeared.
“You know already.”
“I want to hear you say it.”
“He ran the money.”
“How much did you take?”
Ethan stared at the table.
“About eight hundred thousand.”
Rachel almost laughed.
“You ruined Daniel’s life for eight hundred thousand dollars?”
“I didn’t know Hale was taking millions!”
“But you lied.”
“Yes.”
“You committed perjury.”
“Yes.”
“You let Daniel go to prison.”
Ethan’s jaw flexed.
“Mom asked him to confess before I ever did.”
“And you could have stopped it.”
“I was scared.”
Rachel leaned forward.
“So was Daniel.”
Ethan looked at her.
“He still did it.”
That silenced him.
Rachel sat back.
“Where’s Hale?”
“I don’t know.”
“Try again.”
“I really don’t.”
“Who was outside my house?”
Ethan’s eyes changed.
That was enough.
“You know.”
“Rachel—”
“Who?”
Ethan whispered, “Probably Marcus Dane.”
“Who is he?”
“Hale’s fixer.”
“A criminal?”
“A problem solver.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means you should take Emma somewhere else.”
Rachel’s blood turned cold.
“Are you threatening my daughter?”
“No!”
Ethan leaned forward desperately.
“I’m warning you.”
“Why?”
“Because Hale knows the ledgers exist.”
“The FBI has them.”
“Not all of them.”
Rachel stared.
“What do you mean?”
“There was another account.”
“What account?”
Ethan closed his eyes.
“The money wasn’t just stolen from Cross Manufacturing.”
“Then from where?”
“Employee retirement funds.”
Rachel’s stomach dropped.
“How much?”
“I don’t know.”
“Ethan.”
“Maybe twenty million more.”
Rachel stood.
“You stole people’s retirement money?”
“I told you I didn’t know!”
“You signed the transfers!”
“Hale told me they were temporary.”
Rachel laughed bitterly.
“You believed him?”
“I wanted to.”
That sentence reminded her painfully of her mother.
Maybe denial was the Cross family inheritance.
As Rachel reached the door, Ethan spoke.
“There’s something else.”
She turned.
“Hale knows Daniel found the original warehouse recording.”
“How?”
“I told him.”
“When?”
“Before Daniel’s hearing.”
Rachel stared at him.
“Why?”
“Because I was scared.”
Again.
Always fear.
Always someone else paying for Ethan’s fear.
“What did he say?”
Ethan swallowed.
“He said Daniel should’ve stayed in prison.”
That afternoon, Daniel took Emma to a park under the watch of an unmarked federal vehicle.
It felt ridiculous.
Emma wanted the swings.
Daniel pushed her.
“Higher!”
“You’re already above my head.”
“Higher!”
“If your mother kills me, I’m blaming you.”
Emma laughed.
Daniel watched her hair fly in the wind.
Three years.
He had lost first steps.
First words.
Potty training.
Nightmares.
Birthdays.
Nothing could return them.
A strange grief existed inside happiness.
He could hold his daughter now.
But he could never hold the baby he remembered.
A man sat on a bench across the park.
Baseball cap.
Gray jacket.
Daniel noticed him immediately.
The man appeared to read a newspaper.
But he never turned a page.
Daniel stopped pushing the swing.
Emma frowned.
“Daddy?”
“Come here.”
Daniel lifted her down.
The man stood.
Daniel’s muscles tightened.
Federal agents exited their vehicle.
The man immediately walked away.
“Sir!”
He ran.
Daniel carried Emma toward the agents.
One pursued the man.
The other shielded Daniel.
Emma started crying.
“Why are we running?”
Daniel hugged her.
“It’s okay.”
He looked toward the fleeing man.
He hated how easily danger had entered his daughter’s afternoon.
An agent returned ten minutes later.
“Lost him.”
Daniel cursed softly.
Emma looked up.
“That’s a bad word.”
Daniel almost smiled.
“You’re right.”
The agent handed Daniel something.
“He dropped this.”
A photograph.
Daniel took it.
His blood froze.
The photograph showed Emma asleep in her bedroom.
Taken from outside the window.
May you like
On the back were five words.
PRISON WAS SAFER FOR YOU.
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