Chapter 13 - The Sister in the Burning Car)
Her name was Rebecca Brooks.
Diane's younger sister.
Twenty-nine years old.
A nurse.
No connection to the Carter family.
At least none anyone knew.
Gregory explained everything while police surrounded the property outside.
Rebecca had discovered Laura imprisoned in a private clinic connected to Carter Development.
She worked a temporary nursing shift there.
Laura told her enough to make Rebecca frightened.
Rebecca planned to contact police.
Diane found out.
Diane had already been helping Robert hide money.
Protecting Robert meant protecting herself.
Thomas designed the staged crash.
They needed a female body close enough in age and size to Laura.
Rebecca became convenient.
Ethan looked at Diane.
"Your own sister?"
Diane started crying.
It was the first genuine emotion Ethan had ever seen from her.
"I didn't know they would kill her."
Gregory laughed bitterly.
"You gave them her work schedule."
"I thought they were going to scare her."
Another version of the family sentence.
I didn't know.
It wasn't supposed to happen.
I was protecting someone.
Thomas moved toward the back door.
Police entered.
Ruiz arrested him.
Diane surrendered.
Gregory handed over the records.
The evidence was overwhelming.
There were signed instructions.
Bank transfers.
Photographs.
Recorded conversations.
Robert's conspiracy had not begun in 2009.
It had stretched across decades.
Thomas Bennett's death.
The school fire cover-up.
Laura's disappearance.
Rebecca's murder.
Sarah's later imprisonment.
Daniel's hidden childhood.
The Bennett trust fraud.
The insurance policy on Emily.
All connected by the same belief.
That the Carter family could decide whose life mattered.
One question remained.
Sarah Bennett.
Laura's sister.
If she had survived the crash, what happened after six months?
Gregory answered.
"She escaped."
"Where is she now?"
"I don't know."
"Did Laura know?"
"No."
Laura received the news inside the hospital.
She sat silently for nearly a minute.
"My sister might be alive?"
Ruiz nodded.
"Possibly."
Laura cried differently than before.
Not from grief.
From the dangerous hope of someone who had already lost too many years.
Investigators found a passport issued to Sarah Bennett under another name six years earlier.
The photograph matched her.
She had lived in Oregon.
Then Arizona.
Then Maine.
After that, nothing.
The search would continue.
But for Ethan, another crisis arrived first.
Carter Development collapsed financially within days.
Banks froze accounts.
Investors sued.
Employees feared losing pensions.
Construction projects stopped.
Ethan was appointed interim representative by an emergency court order because many of the most valuable properties legally belonged to the Bennett trust.
He faced a choice.
Take everything.
Destroy the Carter company.
Or preserve operations while investigators separated stolen assets from legitimate ones.
Mason visited him at the office.
"So you're the boss now?"
"No."
"Looks like it."
Ethan stared through the window at hundreds of employees leaving the building.
"Most of them didn't do anything."
Mason sat.
"Neither did we."
"No."
"But we're the ones cleaning it up."
Ethan looked at his brother.
"You don't have to."
"Neither do you."
They smiled faintly.
It was the first ordinary moment they shared.
Mason asked, "What happens to the Carter trust?"
"Half your inheritance may be seized because it came from fraud."
"Good."
Ethan looked surprised.
Mason shrugged.
"I lived six years thinking a locked institution was normal. I don't need a private jet."
"What do you want?"
Mason thought.
"Gregory and Helen safe."
"They will be."
"Laura safe."
"She will be."
"North Pines exposed."
Ethan nodded.
"And?"
Mason looked toward the floor.
"I want my name back."
"Daniel?"
He considered.
"No."
Ethan waited.
"Mason Daniel Reed."
Ethan smiled.
"Sounds good."
Mason stood to leave.
Then he stopped.
"There's something else."
"What?"
"Gregory found a file in Thomas's house."
He placed an envelope on Ethan's desk.
Another envelope.
Ethan had begun to hate them.
This one was labeled EMILY.
Inside was a medical report.
Emily's prenatal records.
And a handwritten instruction from Nicholas Sloan.
DELIVERY MUST OCCUR AT ST. MATTHEW'S.
Ethan stared.
Emily was still scheduled to deliver at St. Matthew's.
"Why would they care where she gives birth?"
Mason said, "Gregory doesn't know."
Ethan immediately called Ruiz.
She arrived twenty minutes later.
They examined the hospital records.
One physician's name appeared repeatedly.
Dr. Alan Pierce.
Ethan recognized it.
Pierce had treated Emily after the basement attack.
Ruiz checked his finances.
A payment from a Carter shell company appeared six weeks earlier.
Ethan called Emily.
No answer.
He called again.
Nothing.
Then a nurse picked up.
"Mr. Carter?"
"Where's my wife?"
A pause.
"Dr. Pierce transferred her for imaging."
"Where?"
"I don't know."
Ethan stood.
"When?"
"About fifteen minutes ago."
His heart began pounding.
The conspiracy had been exposed.
Robert arrested.
Thomas arrested.
Diane arrested.
Yet someone was still following the plan.
Ethan whispered, "Find Dr. Pierce."
Ruiz was already moving.
May you like
And somewhere beneath St. Matthew's Medical Center, Emily opened her eyes inside a dark service elevator.
She was alone.
