Chapter 9 - The Grave With the Wrong Name
Grace explained everything in fragments.
Warren Private Ambulance Services had been struggling financially. Martin secretly invested in the company and used its vehicles to transport cash, documents, and occasionally people who needed to disappear.
On the night of Amelia’s crash, Grace and her brother Thomas were dispatched before emergency services received the public call.
“They told us a woman had been injured,” Grace said. “Martin said she was involved in fraud and would be arrested if we took her to the county hospital.”
“You believed him?” Brooke asked.
“At first.”
Grace’s shame was visible.
“When we reached the car, Amelia was trapped but alive. Another woman was already in the back of Martin’s vehicle. She was dead.”
“Who was she?” Price asked.
“I never knew her name. She looked enough like Amelia after the fire damaged the vehicle.”
Larry turned pale.
“The car caught fire?”
“After we removed Amelia.”
Grace described how Martin ordered Thomas to move Amelia into the private ambulance. Bethany arrived minutes later.
“She was younger then,” Grace said. “Terrified. She kept saying the plan had gone too far.”
Brooke’s voice tightened.
“What plan?”
“To frighten Amelia. To destroy the ledger. Bethany claimed the brake line was only supposed to leak slowly, forcing Amelia to stop before reaching the police.”
“But she crashed.”
“Yes.”
“What happened to her afterward?”
Grace looked down.
“We took her to a private clinic outside the county. She had a severe head injury, broken ribs, and memory loss. Martin paid the doctor to record her under another name.”
Larry stood.
“Where is she?”
“I don’t know.”
Brooke’s heart pounded.
“You said she was alive.”
“She was alive when I last saw her.”
“When was that?”
“Six months after the crash.”
The hope that had risen inside Brooke nearly collapsed.
Grace continued.
“She remembered pieces. Your name. The orchard. A blue umbrella. Martin became afraid she would recover completely.”
“What did he do?” Larry asked.
“He moved her.”
“Where?”
“I tried to find out. Thomas helped me copy transport records, but Martin discovered what we were doing. We ran.”
“Why didn’t you go to the police?”
“Two officers were in the ledger. One later became chief. We believed no one.”
Price asked for names.
Grace gave them.
One was dead.
The other had retired to another state.
Brooke touched the pendant around her neck.
“Why do you have that?”
“Amelia gave it to me at the clinic. She said her daughter had the other half.”
“My half was hidden for years.”
“Then Bethany must have taken it.”
Larry looked devastated.
“Why did she stay with me? If Bethany helped Martin, why marry me?”
Grace’s expression softened with pity.
“To watch you.”
The answer seemed to age him.
Grace produced a small notebook from inside her coat. It belonged to Thomas and contained dates, license numbers, and partial addresses connected to Amelia’s transport.
The final entry was written three weeks earlier.
Found A.C. She is alive. Martin knows.
Thomas had discovered Amelia.
That was why he disappeared.
Price organized a search for him.
Meanwhile, Rebecca examined the red ledger. It provided enough evidence to freeze Martin’s remaining assets and expose the fraudulent sale of the northern field.
Brooke’s ownership of the house and orchard was now secure.
But the money no longer mattered.
She wanted her mother.
The trail led to a medical facility called Hawthorne Recovery Center, which had operated under several names across two states. It specialized in long-term neurological care and closed five years earlier.
Patient records had been transferred to a storage company.
The storage warehouse burned the following month.
Yet one former Hawthorne employee still lived nearby.
Dr. Miriam Holt had been the center’s medical director.
Price arranged an interview.
Dr. Holt, now eighty-one, lived in a retirement community and seemed frightened by Amelia’s photograph.
“I was told she had no family,” she said.
“What name did she use?” Brooke asked.
“Anna Mercer.”
“Was she there for ten years?”
“No. Only three.”
“Where did she go?”
Dr. Holt looked toward the closed door.
“A man claiming to be her husband transferred her.”
“Martin?”
“No.”
“Larry?”
Dr. Holt shook her head.
“He called himself Daniel Vale.”
Bethany’s father was named Daniel Vale.
According to Bethany, he had died when she was a teenager.
Price searched public records.
Daniel Vale was not dead.
He had changed his name to Daniel Voss and owned a private care home in northern Vermont.
Brooke stared at his current photograph.
He had been present at Bethany’s birthday party.
She remembered him now: the quiet older man near the piano, wearing polished black shoes and a navy suit.
The man who had entered Evan’s room with Bethany.
The man she had mistaken for Martin.
Price enlarged the image.
“Daniel Voss crossed into Canada this morning.”
“Was he alone?” Larry asked.
Price’s phone buzzed with an update.
He read it.
“No.”
Brooke gripped the table.
“Who was with him?”
“A woman matching Bethany’s description.”
Larry closed his eyes.
Price continued.
May you like
“And an unidentified female passenger whose travel documents list her age as fifty-nine.”
Amelia would be fifty-nine.
