Chapter 6 - MIA’S SECRET“No.”
I said it immediately.
Trevor leaned back.
“Harlow—”
“No.”
“Hear me out.”
“My sister didn’t steal some criminal ledger from a fake bank account.”
“You asked who else knew your father’s information.”
“Thousands of records could.”
“Mia knew the specific alias.”
My stomach tightened despite myself.
“What alias?”
Trevor watched me carefully.
“Thomas Bennett.”
“That’s my father’s name.”
“Thomas Reid Bennett.”
I froze.
My father rarely used his middle name.
Mia did.
She had named her son Reid.
Trevor saw recognition.
“That identity appeared on one account Martin created.”
“How would Mia know that?”
“Because she found paperwork at your apartment.”
“When?”
“After the fire.”
I stood.
“This conversation is over.”
Trevor leaned forward.
“Harlow, Martin isn’t trying to kill you because of me. He’s trying to find that ledger.”
“I don’t have it.”
“But Mia might.”
I left the room furious.
Daniel was waiting in the hallway.
I walked past him.
“Harlow.”
“Don’t.”
I reached the elevator.
He followed.
“Ortiz has to ask Mia.”
“I know.”
“That doesn’t mean Trevor is telling the truth.”
“I know.”
The doors opened.
I stepped inside.
Daniel joined me.
“You don’t have to believe him.”
“I said I know.”
The elevator descended.
My breathing became shallow.
Daniel quietly said, “I trusted Ethan completely.”
I looked at him.
“He still kept things from me.”
I hated him for saying something reasonable.
“My sister isn’t involved.”
“I didn’t say she was.”
“She would have told me.”
“Maybe.”
The doors opened.
I walked out.
Mia was waiting at the safe apartment.
One look at my face and she knew.
“What happened?”
I dropped my purse onto the chair.
“Did you empty a safety deposit box in Hartford?”
All color left her face.
That was my answer.
I stared.
“Mia.”
She looked toward the window.
“Mia.”
“Yes.”
The word struck harder than shouting.
I sat slowly.
“When?”
“Two weeks after the fire.”
“Why?”
She came closer.
“Because I found a key.”
“Where?”
“In Trevor’s coat.”
My heart pounded.
“You went through his coat?”
“It was at the hospital.”
She sat opposite me.
“The night you were transferred out of ICU, Trevor asked me to bring him clean clothes. His coat fell off the chair. A small envelope came out of the pocket.”
“What was inside?”
“A key and a bank card.”
“Under Dad’s name?”
“Yes.”
“And you didn’t think maybe you should call police?”
“I didn’t know what it was.”
“So you went there?”
“I was suspicious.”
“Of what?”
“Trevor.”
That stopped me.
Mia’s eyes filled.
“I had been suspicious before the fire.”
“Why?”
“Because I saw him with Vanessa.”
Months before.
She had seen them outside a restaurant in New Haven.
Trevor’s hand on Vanessa’s back.
Vanessa kissing his cheek.
Mia confronted Trevor.
He convinced her it was a client meeting.
She almost told me.
Then I announced that Trevor was planning to propose.
“I thought I’d misunderstood.”
“You didn’t.”
“No.”
She wiped her eyes.
“After the fire, he became so devoted. Sleeping at the hospital. Talking to your doctors. Crying.”
Her mouth twisted.
“I felt horrible for doubting him.”
Until she found the key.
“What happened at the bank?”
“The name on the card was Dad’s.”
“How did they let you access the box?”
“They didn’t.”
I stared.
“Then how?”
“I waited.”
Apparently Mia had gone to the bank pretending she needed information about settling our father’s estate.
While sitting in the lobby, she saw Martin Keene.
She didn’t know his name then.
But she photographed him because he was arguing with a manager about the same account.
Later that evening, someone broke into Mia’s car.
The envelope disappeared.
She became frightened.
“So you didn’t empty the box.”
“No.”
“Trevor said—”
“Trevor lied.”
Again.
Of course.
“But I know who did.”
My pulse jumped.
“Who?”
“An attorney named Samuel Price.”
“How?”
“The bank manager called me after the police contacted them about the break-in. She thought I was involved with the account because I had asked about Dad.”
“Who is Samuel Price?”
Mia shook her head.
“I don’t know.”
Daniel did.
When we told him, he stared at us.
“Samuel Price represented Ethan.”
Price had vanished after Ethan’s death.
Not dramatically.
He simply closed his law office and moved to Maine.
Daniel believed he had quit practicing law.
Detective Ortiz found him within hours.
Samuel Price was sixty-eight and living in a small coastal town.
He agreed to speak.
But only to Daniel and me.
Ortiz hated that condition.
We drove to Maine the next morning with police coordination.
Price’s house sat above gray water.
Wind rattled bare branches.
The whole place looked like somewhere secrets came to retire.
Samuel opened the door before we knocked.
He was tall, thin, with white hair and tired eyes.
When he saw Daniel, he whispered,
“You look like Ethan.”
Daniel’s face tightened.
“No, I don’t.”
Samuel nodded sadly.
“No. I suppose you don’t.”
We sat in his living room.
No one accepted tea.
Samuel clasped his hands.
“I’ve been waiting a long time.”
“For what?” I asked.
“For someone who could finish what Ethan started.”
He looked at my scars.
“I’m sorry it had to be you.”
That sentence irritated me instantly.
“It didn’t have to be anyone.”
“No.”
His eyes dropped.
“You’re right.”
Daniel asked, “Did you empty the deposit box?”
“Yes.”
“Where is the ledger?”
Samuel looked toward the ocean.
“Safe.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It’s the only one I can give until I know who I’m giving it to.”
“I’m Ethan’s brother.”
“And that almost makes you the worst person to give it to.”
Daniel stood.
“What?”
“Sit down.”
“No.”
Samuel remained calm.
“Ethan was murdered because he underestimated how many people were involved.”
The room went cold.
“Martin?” Daniel asked.
“Martin organized part of it.”
“Trevor?”
“Trevor moved money.”
“Who else?”
Samuel looked at me.
“Police.”
Nobody spoke.
“Which police?”
“I don’t know.”
Daniel swore under his breath.
Samuel continued.
“Ethan discovered that someone was warning Martin whenever investigators got close.”
“Do you have proof?”
“The ledger includes payments.”
“To officers?”
“Initials. Dates. Amounts.”
I thought of Detective Ortiz.
Immediately hated myself.
But suspicion had become contagious.
“Why didn’t you turn it over?”
“I tried.”
Samuel’s voice cracked for the first time.
“Ethan was dead forty-eight hours later.”
Silence.
Then I asked, “Why use my father’s identity?”
“He didn’t. Martin did.”
“Why?”
“Your father and Trevor worked together briefly.”
I stared.
“My father hated Trevor.”
That was true.
Dad had never trusted him.
Before he died of a heart attack, he told me Trevor smiled too much when money came up.
I had laughed.
“Your father suspected Trevor was stealing from clients,” Samuel said.
“What?”
“He contacted Ethan.”
I stopped breathing.
Everything connected.
My father had found discrepancies in Trevor’s early company records.
He quietly contacted Ethan, who was working on one of the projects.
After Dad died, Ethan continued looking.
Martin discovered it.
He used my father’s identity later as a cruel layer of camouflage.
“And Trevor knew?” I whispered.
Samuel’s eyes answered.
Yes.
The man I loved had known my father suspected him.
Had known Dad tried to expose him.
Had moved into my home anyway.
Shared my bed.
Held me while I grieved.
I felt physically sick.
Daniel asked, “Where is the ledger?”
Samuel stood.
He walked to a bookshelf.
Removed an old hardcover copy of Moby-Dick.
Inside the hollowed pages sat a flash drive.
“Copies,” he said. “The original is somewhere nobody can burn.”
Daniel took a step.
Samuel didn’t hand it to him.
He handed it to me.
“Why me?”
“Because Ethan wrote something in his notes.”
He opened another envelope.
Inside was a yellow legal page.
One sentence had been underlined.
If anything happens, find Harlow Bennett. Her father tried to stop them first.
I stared until the words blurred.
Dad had been dead six years.
Yet somehow he had still been trying to protect me.
I covered my mouth.
Then a car engine roared outside.
Samuel turned sharply.
Through the window, a black SUV appeared at the end of the driveway.
Daniel stood.
“Were you expecting someone?”
“No.”
The SUV accelerated.
Straight toward the house.
Daniel grabbed me.
We hit the floor as the vehicle crashed through Samuel’s front porch.
Glass exploded.
Wood splintered.
The entire house shook.
Someone shouted outside.
Daniel dragged me behind a stone fireplace.
Samuel crawled toward the hall.
Then a man stepped through the shattered doorway.
Baseball cap.
Dark jacket.
Gun in his hand.
Martin Keene looked at me.
May you like
And smiled.
“I’ve been looking everywhere for you.”
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