Chapter 11 - The Man Behind The Trust
Claire didn't sleep.
At 3:17 in the morning, she received a message.
You have the wrong key.
She stared at the screen.
Then another message appeared.
Your mother lied about one thing.
Your father lied about another.
Claire typed:
Who are you?
No response.
She typed again.
What do you want?
A minute passed.
Then:
The truth.
Claire looked at the message.
Everyone wanted to use that word.
Truth.
As if truth were a gift.
As if it couldn't destroy people.
The next morning, Daniel arrived.
He looked exhausted.
"I found something."
Claire let him in.
He placed an old newspaper clipping on the table.
The headline was from eighteen years earlier.
LOCAL BUSINESSMAN PRESUMED DEAD AFTER VEHICLE ACCIDENT
Claire read the name.
Robert Barrett.
Her father.
"Presumed?"
Daniel nodded.
"His body was never identified."
Claire stared at him.
"What are you saying?"
"I'm saying the death certificate was issued without a confirmed body."
Her hands shook.
"Then who died?"
Daniel didn't answer.
Claire stood.
"You said my father was dead."
"I said everyone believed he was."
"Do you?"
Daniel looked away.
Claire's heart began racing.
"You know."
"I suspect."
"Where is he?"
"I don't know."
"Daniel."
"I haven't seen him in six years."
"Then why did you say he was alive?"
"I didn't."
Claire remembered Linda's words.
He is alive.
"Mom said it."
Daniel looked at her.
"When?"
"Last night."
Daniel went pale.
"Then we have a problem."
"What?"
"Linda never believed Robert died."
Claire stared at him.
"Why?"
"Because she knew who was in the car."
Silence.
Claire sat down.
"Who?"
Daniel looked at her.
"Thomas."
Claire's mind raced.
"Thomas is dead."
"That's what the records say."
"You're telling me my grandfather, my father, and my mother all lied?"
Daniel shook his head.
"No."
"Then who is Thomas?"
Daniel placed a second photograph on the table.
This one was recent.
Claire looked at it.
A man stood outside a courthouse.
Older now.
Gray hair.
Black-stone ring.
Claire's breath caught.
She knew him.
She had seen him before.
Not at the memorial.
Not in the photographs.
At the restaurant.
He had been sitting at a table near the window on Mother's Day.
Watching her.
Claire whispered.
"He's alive."
May you like
Daniel nodded.
"And he knows you have the trust."
