Chapter 3 - The Eighty-Six-Million-Dollar SecretI left the hospital three days later.
My condition had improved, although the doctors couldn't conclusively identify the original source of the infection.
There was no confirmed evidence that anyone had deliberately made me sick.
But the questions surrounding my family had become impossible to ignore.
My father's driver waited outside in a black Mercedes.
I walked past him.
"Miss Whitmore?"
"I'm not going home."
"Your father instructed—"
"My father doesn't make this decision."
Olivia was waiting beside her old blue Volvo.
She opened the passenger door.
"Welcome to your first act of rebellion."
I laughed.
Then I climbed inside.
Her Cambridge apartment had uneven floors, mismatched furniture, and a kitchen that smelled like garlic.
It was perfect.
That evening, Daniel visited.
He brought groceries and a folder of old newspaper clippings.
Olivia studied him suspiciously.
"Are you always this helpful?"
"Only when people look like they're surviving on coffee and crackers."
"That's a serious accusation."
"I saw the refrigerator."
I smiled.
For the first time in days, the three of us laughed.
Then Daniel opened the folder.
His mother had been investigating payments from the Harbor Children's Initiative to several private medical facilities.
Some of the facilities no longer existed.
Others had changed names.
One had been operated by a company called Northbridge Clinical Services.
I recognized the name.
"My father used to own Northbridge."
Daniel looked up.
"Are you sure?"
"He sold it years ago."
Olivia opened her laptop.
"To whom?"
I thought carefully.
"Someone named Adrian Cross."
Daniel's expression changed.
"Adrian Cross?"
"Yes."
He exchanged a glance with Olivia.
She began typing.
A few seconds later, a photograph appeared.
A handsome man in his late fifties wearing an expensive suit.
Adrian Cross.
My father's closest business partner.
And the man who had attended every major Whitmore family event for as long as I could remember.
I stared at the screen.
"He was at the dinner."
Daniel leaned forward.
"The night you collapsed?"
I nodded.
"He sat beside my father."
Olivia searched further.
Northbridge had received millions in payments from the charitable hospital project.
But the company had reported almost no corresponding construction expenses.
Instead, money had moved through consulting agreements, property acquisitions, and private research contracts.
"That doesn't prove a crime," Olivia said. "But it's enough to justify looking at the original records."
Daniel nodded.
"My mother believed the hospital project was being used to hide something else."
"What?"
He looked at me.
"Payments connected to unauthorized medical research."
My stomach tightened.
"What kind of research?"
"We don't know."
I remembered my mother's warning.
Don't drink anything they bring you.
Suddenly, the words seemed even more sinister.
But Olivia stopped me before I could jump to conclusions.
"We're not going to assume your illness is connected to something from twenty-three years ago."
I nodded.
She was right.
We needed facts.
Not fear.
The following morning, Daniel located Rebecca Sloan, the former assistant of Jonathan Vale.
She lived in Salem.
We visited her together.
Rebecca was sixty-seven, with silver hair and cautious green eyes.
When Daniel introduced himself, she nearly cried.
"You look like Catherine."
He swallowed.
"People tell me that."
Rebecca invited us inside.
She explained that Jonathan Vale had been investigating the missing charitable funds when Catherine died.
Two weeks later, his house burned down.
The newspapers reported that he had died inside.
But Rebecca knew something different.
"Jonathan survived," she said.
We stared at her.
"What?" Olivia asked.
"He contacted me five months later."
"Where?"
"Portland, Maine."
"Why didn't he come forward?"
"He said someone had tried to kill him. He didn't trust the people investigating the fire."
Daniel leaned forward.
"Did he know what happened to my mother?"
Rebecca shook her head.
"He believed she had been deliberately silenced. But he couldn't prove who was responsible."
She opened a wooden box.
Inside was a photograph and a brass key.
The photograph showed Jonathan alive months after his reported death.
The key was stamped with the number 317.
"He told me to give this to anyone who came asking about Catherine," Rebecca said.
"What does it open?" I asked.
"A safe-deposit box."
Olivia examined the key.
"Where?"
Rebecca gave us the name of a bank that had since merged with another institution.
Then she looked directly at me.
"There's something else."
I waited.
"Jonathan said Catherine had created a second set of records."
"What records?"
"Documents identifying the people who authorized the transfers."
Daniel became still.
"Did she name them?"
Rebecca hesitated.
"She named Richard Whitmore."
My heart sank.
"And Adrian Cross."
I closed my eyes.
For years, Adrian had been like an uncle to me.
He had sent birthday presents.
Attended my graduation.
Told me stories about my father when they were young.
Now his name appeared beside a dead woman's investigation.
Rebecca continued.
"But Jonathan said there was a third person involved."
"Who?" Olivia asked.
Rebecca shook her head.
"He wouldn't tell me."
"Why?"
"He said that person was the most dangerous of all."
That night, my mother called.
Her voice trembled.
"Emily, your father knows you went to Salem."
I sat upright.
"How?"
"I don't know."
"Mom, are you safe?"
A long silence.
Then she whispered, "Not anymore."
I heard a door open.
My mother gasped.
"Emily, listen. The safe-deposit box isn't the only thing Jonathan hid."
"What else?"
"A recording."
"Of what?"
"The night Catherine died."
My heart stopped.
"Where is it?"
Her voice broke.
"Ask Thomas Mercer why he stopped looking for Lily."
Then the call ended.
A message arrived from my mother's phone.
DON'T CALL AGAIN. EVERYTHING IS UNDER CONTROL. —RICHARD
May you like
I stared at the screen.
And for the first time, I was genuinely afraid that my father might hurt my mother.
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