Chapter 2 - Rebecca Finally Admitted She Had Known My Missing Love—and Her Next Sentence Made My Entire Family Look GuiltyI couldn't move.
Not physically.
Not emotionally.
For eleven months, I had lived with the belief that the accident was my punishment for driving too fast on a rainy night.
The police report said I lost control on an icy curve.
My insurance company agreed.
My doctors never questioned it.
My father never questioned it.
My business partners never questioned it.
Nobody had.
Yet Rebecca was standing in my garden telling me that my life had been destroyed by someone.
And she had known Emily.
"How long have you known her?"
Rebecca lowered her head.
"Twenty years."
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"Because I promised."
"To whom?"
She didn't answer.
"Rebecca."
She looked at me.
"To Emily."
That answer made no sense.
"Emily is gone."
"That's what you were told."
I felt my hands beginning to shake.
"Was she alive after that night?"
Rebecca hesitated.
"I saw her."
"When?"
"Years ago."
"Where?"
She looked toward the house.
"Not in Chicago."
"Where?"
"I can't tell you yet."
I laughed bitterly.
"You realize how insane this sounds."
"Yes."
"You expect me to believe that the woman I loved disappeared twenty years ago, secretly stayed alive, told her story to your son, and somehow your son knows her name?"
Rebecca's eyes filled with tears.
"Emily knew she had a son."
I froze.
"What?"
Rebecca looked away.
"She knew about Sammy."
I couldn't breathe.
"Sammy is six."
"Yes."
"Emily disappeared twenty years ago."
"Yes."
"How could she know him?"
Rebecca said nothing.
A thought struck me.
I stared at her.
"Sammy isn't yours?"
Rebecca's face changed.
"I didn't say that."
"Then tell me."
She shook her head.
"Not today."
I slammed my hand against the wheelchair.
"Someone has been lying to me for twenty years!"
My voice echoed across the garden.
Sammy appeared briefly at the doorway.
Rebecca turned.
"Go inside!"
He disappeared.
I looked at her.
"You will tell me."
She nodded slowly.
"Tonight."
"Where?"
"My apartment."
"No."
She looked surprised.
"Here."
"Mr. Caldwell—"
"You're not leaving this house until I understand what happened."
She flinched.
I immediately regretted the words.
I wasn't threatening her.
I was desperate.
"Please."
That softened her.
She nodded.
"Tonight."
I spent the entire afternoon thinking about Emily.
We had met when we were twenty-two.
She had worked at a small bookstore in Lincoln Park.
She had laughed at me when I came in wearing a suit.
"You look like someone who doesn't know how to read."
I had been offended.
Then I fell in love.
For four years, she made me a better person.
She challenged me.
She told me when I was being arrogant.
She refused my expensive gifts.
She preferred coffee from a tiny café to dinner at a five-star restaurant.
Then one night, she disappeared.
I came home and found her apartment empty.
Her phone was gone.
Her clothes were gone.
There was no note.
Police searched.
Nothing.
My father told me to move on.
"People leave," he said.
I believed him.
Eventually.
Or I pretended to.
Years later, my father told me Emily had stolen money from one of our family companies and fled.
I never believed it.
But I had no proof.
I buried her name.
Until now.
That evening, Rebecca came to my office.
She closed the door.
"No one knows we're talking."
"Good."
She sat across from me.
"I met Emily when I was twenty-five."
"You were friends?"
"No."
"Then what?"
"I worked for your father's family."
My blood ran cold.
"You worked for my father?"
"Yes."
"Doing what?"
"Housekeeping."
I stared at her.
"At the old house?"
She nodded.
"Then you knew Emily because of my father."
"Partly."
"What happened?"
Rebecca took a breath.
"Your father didn't want you to marry Emily."
"Why?"
"He believed she would expose something."
"What?"
She hesitated.
"Your father had been using Caldwell companies to move money through Chicago."
I stared at her.
"Money laundering?"
"Much more than that."
She pulled a folded photograph from her purse.
I opened it.
Emily stood beside my father.
My heart stopped.
They were outside our family warehouse.
And Emily was holding a folder.
"What's in the folder?"
"Evidence."
"Of what?"
"Your father planned to use it against her."
I looked at the photograph again.
"When was this taken?"
"Three days before Emily disappeared."
I felt sick.
"What did she know?"
Rebecca's voice dropped.
"She knew your father had ordered someone killed."
I stared at her.
"Who?"
She looked directly at me.
"Emily had evidence that your father was responsible for the disappearance of her own brother."
I couldn't speak.
My father had died eight years ago believing that everything he had done had stayed buried.
But perhaps he had known one person could expose him.
Emily.
And now I wondered whether her disappearance had been about betrayal at all.
Maybe she'd never left.
Maybe she'd been silenced.
Then Rebecca said:
"Your father wasn't the only person afraid of Emily."
"Who else?"
May you like
She looked at me.
"Your mother."
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