Chapter 8 - The Truth About Dad's DeathThe investigation lasted three months.
The forged documents were traced.
The stolen money was recovered.
Elliot was arrested for fraud, conspiracy, and attempted murder.
But the strangest discovery came from the medical records.
Dad had never been diagnosed with dementia.
The records had been fabricated.
His doctor had been paid to create them.
And the person who funded the payments was not Serena.
It was a man nobody expected.
Nathan Reed.
The man everyone believed had died twenty years earlier.
He had been alive.
He had been hiding under another name.
And he had spent decades waiting to reclaim Vance Holdings.
Dad finally confronted him in court.
Nathan looked old.
Weak.
Nothing like the monster we'd imagined.
He admitted everything.
He had manipulated Serena.
He had convinced her that Evelyn planned to destroy the family.
He had used Julian to access the foundation.
He had hired the fake doctor.
And he had staged Dad's death announcement.
But there was one thing he denied.
“I never tried to kill Marcus.”
Dad stared at him.
“Then who did?”
Nathan looked toward the courtroom doors.
“I don't know.”
A detective approached.
“Mr. Vance.”
Dad turned.
“We found something.”
The detective handed him a photograph.
It showed someone entering Dad's house two nights before the fake death announcement.
The person was wearing a hood.
But the face was visible.
Dad stared.
I stared.
Serena gasped.
Julian whispered:
“No.”
The person in the photograph was our mother.
Impossible.
She had been dead for fifteen years.
Dad's hands began shaking.
“That isn't possible.”
The detective nodded.
“We thought so too.”
He turned the photograph over.
There was an address.
A small town in Virginia.
Dad looked at me.
“Clara.”
“Yes?”
May you like
“I think your mother may still be alive.”
The world seemed to stop.
