Chapter 6 - The Voice on Dylan’s Phone
The woman from St. Alder identified herself as Dr. Miriam Voss.
Dylan listened as she explained that Martin Hale had been a patient at the center for nearly twelve years under a false identity.
Each sentence seemed to rearrange reality.
His father had not drowned.
His father had not abandoned him.
His father had been alive while Dylan sold the family home, took control of a struggling company, married Lucy, and built a life around an absence that had never been real.
“Why did you contact my wife?” Dylan asked.
“Your father requested her.”
“He had never met her.”
“He believed she was the only person outside the existing family structure whom he could trust.”
Dylan looked at Chloe.
She stood near the dining table, silent and pale.
“Dr. Voss, my sister is here.”
“Do not let her leave.”
“Why?”
“Because we have documents bearing her signature. Those documents authorized your father’s admission under another name.”
Chloe moved toward the apartment door.
Dylan caught her arm.
Not roughly, but firmly enough to stop her.
“Sit down.”
She looked at his hand as if he had betrayed her.
“Dylan.”
“Sit down.”
The elevator panel sounded.
Aaron had already left the floor.
Dylan called building security.
“Lock the lobby exits. Aaron Pike took property from my apartment.”
The guard hesitated. “Mr. Pike left three minutes ago.”
“Pull the camera recordings and call the police.”
Chloe laughed once.
“You think this can be handled by building security?”
Dylan ended the call.
“Tell me what happened to Father.”
She sat slowly.
“The truth is complicated.”
“You told me he died.”
“I told you what you needed to believe.”
“Why?”
“Because he was going to destroy everything.”
Dylan held up the photograph. “He was injured.”
“He was unstable before he was injured.”
“Did you cause the accident?”
“No.”
“Did Aaron?”
Chloe looked away.
That was enough.
Dylan called Lucy.
The call went directly to voicemail.
He sent a message.
I know the truth. Please tell me where you are.
No answer came.
He called again.
Then he noticed something on the hospital receipt.
The payment had been made from their joint emergency account, but the reimbursement section listed a pending transfer from Lucy’s personal inheritance trust.
She had intended to replace every dollar.
The shame arrived slowly and then all at once.
Lucy had asked him to trust her.
He had placed her outside a locked door.
Chloe watched him understand.
“She still lied to you,” she said.
Dylan turned on her. “To protect my father from you.”
“To protect a version of your father she barely knows.”
“She knows enough to pay for his treatment.”
“With your money.”
“With our money.”
“That distinction may matter to you now.”
“It should have mattered to me before.”
Dylan took the keys from the counter.
“You are coming with me.”
“To the clinic?”
“Yes.”
“Dylan, listen to me. Martin’s memory cannot be trusted.”
“Then you should have nothing to fear.”
Chloe remained seated.
He called the police and repeated what Dr. Voss had said. The dispatcher advised him not to transport Chloe himself and to wait for officers.
Ten minutes later, two detectives entered the apartment.
Chloe requested an attorney.
Dylan almost laughed.
“Call Aaron.”
Her expression hardened.
One detective photographed the documents Lucy had left. Another reviewed the security footage showing Aaron carrying Dylan’s laptop through the hallway.
When asked where Lucy had gone, Dylan could only say he did not know.
The detectives took Chloe to the station for questioning but did not arrest her immediately. The documents were old, the circumstances complicated, and her attorney had already begun making calls.
Dylan drove alone to St. Alder.
The storm worsened.
Every red light felt unbearable.
At the clinic, Dr. Voss led him through the same quiet corridor Lucy had walked weeks earlier.
Martin sat beside the window.
For several seconds, father and son looked at each other without speaking.
Dylan had imagined this moment in dreams after the accident. In those dreams, Martin always appeared as he had been at fifty-five. Tall, broad-shouldered, impatient with emotion.
The man before him was thinner and older.
But alive.
Dylan stopped near the doorway.
Martin’s eyes filled.
“You have your mother’s face when you are angry.”
Dylan could not answer.
Martin struggled to stand.
Dylan crossed the room and held him before he could fall.
The embrace was awkward, painful, and real.
Martin pressed one hand against the back of his son’s neck.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered.
Dylan closed his eyes.
For twelve years, he had believed his father had chosen the sea over his children.
Now there were too many questions to ask and no place to begin.
“Did Chloe do this to you?”
Martin sat again.
“She did not cause the explosion.”
“Explosion?”
“The boat did not simply fail. Someone placed a charge near the engine compartment.”
Dylan felt the room tilt.
“Who?”
“Aaron arranged it.”
“Why?”
“Because I discovered he and Chloe had been moving money through company subsidiaries.”
Dylan thought of the trust amendments, the temporary control, and the years Chloe spent overseeing every financial decision.
“How much money?”
Martin looked toward Dr. Voss.
“More than eight thousand dollars.”
“How much?”
“Nearly forty million.”
Dylan stared at him.
Martin continued.
“I intended to give you control of the voting trust. Chloe learned about it. She said you were too young and too influenced by grief. She believed the company belonged to her because she had sacrificed everything for the family.”
“Did she know Aaron planned to destroy the boat?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did she help hide you afterward?”
“Yes.”
Dylan sat across from him.
“Why keep you alive?”
“At first, guilt. Later, leverage.”
“Against whom?”
Martin’s eyes sharpened.
“Your mother.”
Dylan stopped breathing.
May you like
“Our mother died before the accident.”
“That is what Chloe told you.”
