Chapter 6 - The Betrayal That Wore a Familiar Face
Dr. Emily Parker had been my physician for seven years.
She had treated my migraines during college, sat beside my hospital bed when my father died, and held my hand when I learned I was pregnant.
If Emily had betrayed me, I wasn't sure there was anyone left in the world I could trust.
Grant found me in the kitchen at six the next morning.
I was sitting at the table, staring at my untouched tea.
"Did you sleep?"
"No."
He pulled out the chair opposite mine.
"Daniel traced the login."
I closed my eyes.
"Please don't tell me."
"It wasn't Emily."
I looked up.
"What?"
"Her account was accessed using a temporary password issued through the clinic's outside technology provider. Someone had administrative access."
"Who?"
"We're still investigating."
I wanted to feel relieved.
Instead, I felt exhausted.
"Grant, every time we find an answer, there are three more questions."
"I know."
"How did my life become this?"
He didn't answer immediately.
Then he said, "Because my family spent years treating people like assets."
I stared at him.
"You're part of that family."
"Yes."
He looked down at his hands.
"And I have spent most of my adult life pretending that made me successful instead of responsible."
It was the closest thing to an apology I had heard from him.
But apologies couldn't erase thirteen weeks.
They couldn't erase the nights I had spent sitting on the bathroom floor, frightened that the babies I already loved might be taken from me.
"Why didn't you call?" I asked.
Grant looked up.
"After July."
His face changed.
I had asked the question I had been avoiding since the moment he arrived.
"Why did you leave?"
He rubbed a hand across his mouth.
"My father left me a sealed letter. His estate attorney delivered it the morning after I was here."
"What did it say?"
"That the Whitmore merger had been compromised. That someone inside Hale Meridian had been using our infrastructure contracts to move money through shell companies."
I frowned.
"And that made you stop speaking to me?"
"No."
He swallowed.
"The letter also claimed your father had known."
I stared at him.
"My father?"
"Charles wrote that Whitmore Systems might have been involved in the original transactions. I didn't know whether you knew anything about it."
"You thought I was part of a fraud scheme?"
"I didn't know what to think."
"So you disappeared."
His silence answered for him.
I stood.
"Do you understand what that did to me?"
"Nora—"
"You slept beside me. You held me. You made me believe, for one night, that our marriage might actually become something real."
My voice cracked.
"And then you left me alone because you couldn't decide whether I was trustworthy."
Grant rose.
"I was wrong."
"Yes."
"I should have called."
"Yes."
"I should have come back."
I wiped my face.
"Yes, Grant. You should have."
He took a step toward me.
Then stopped.
"I can't change what I did. But I won't lie to you about it."
I wanted to hate him.
It would have been easier.
Instead, I remembered the way he had listened to the twins' heartbeats.
And that made everything more complicated.
My phone rang.
Samuel Reed.
I answered immediately.
"Samuel?"
"I'm at the old Whitmore testing facility in Poughkeepsie."
"Are you safe?"
"For the moment."
His voice was strained.
"I found the Northstar records."
Grant moved closer.
Samuel continued.
"Your father discovered that someone was using Whitmore's shipping verification software to conceal payments to offshore companies. He was gathering evidence."
"Against whom?"
"That's what I need to show you."
"Can you email it?"
"No. The files are on an encrypted drive. I don't trust any network connected to Hale Meridian."
Grant took the phone.
"Samuel, this is Grant Hale. We can arrange for an independent investigator to collect the evidence."
There was a long silence.
Then Samuel said, "Your father tried that."
Grant stiffened.
"What?"
"Charles Hale trusted the wrong investigator. Three days later, the evidence disappeared."
A door slammed in the background.
Samuel stopped speaking.
"Samuel?" I whispered.
He breathed sharply.
"Someone's here."
Then the call ended.
Grant immediately contacted Daniel and the local police.
Within an hour, officers arrived at the testing facility.
Samuel was gone.
His car remained outside.
The building's security system had been disabled.
And the room where he claimed to have stored the Northstar records had been emptied.
I sat beside Grant as Daniel delivered the news.
"Was there blood?" I asked.
"No evidence of an injury at the scene," Daniel answered. "But we don't know whether he left voluntarily."
Grant stared at the photographs.
One showed a desk.
Another showed an open filing cabinet.
The third showed a broken picture frame.
He leaned closer.
"Wait."
Daniel enlarged the image.
Behind the broken glass was a photograph of my father standing beside Charles Hale.
Both men were smiling.
Between them stood a younger woman.
Dark hair.
Elegant posture.
A familiar face.
My breath caught.
"That's Evelyn."
Grant shook his head.
"No."
"Grant, look at her."
"I see her."
"Then why are you saying no?"
He pointed at the date printed beneath the photograph.
September 18, 2004.
Twenty-two years earlier.
Evelyn would have been barely out of law school.
But the woman in the photograph looked nearly identical to her.
Grant whispered, "That's not Evelyn Cross."
"Then who is she?"
He looked at me.
"Her mother."
A cold sensation spread through my chest.
Grant continued.
"Her name was Margaret Cross. She was the original Northstar compliance director."
"What happened to her?"
Grant's expression darkened.
"She died in a warehouse fire."
"When?"
May you like
He swallowed.
"Three days after your father accused someone of stealing the Northstar patents."
