Chapter 3 - The Brother No One Was Supposed to Know About)
Laura entered the room at 11:04 p.m.
Ethan remained standing.
She stopped several feet away from him.
For the first time, he studied her carefully.
Her eyes were his.
Not similar.
His.
The same slightly uneven brows.
The same crease beside the left eye.
The same habit of pressing her lips together before speaking.
Memories assaulted him.
A woman laughing while flour covered a kitchen counter.
A hand smoothing his hair before school.
A voice reading beside his bed.
A silver bird necklace.
He had spent seventeen years teaching himself not to remember too clearly because remembering hurt.
Now the dead had walked back into the room.
"Where is Daniel?" Ethan asked.
Laura looked at the birth certificate in his hand.
"I don't know."
"You gave birth to him."
"Yes."
"And Dad took him?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
Laura's face collapsed into something exhausted.
"Because Daniel was never supposed to exist."
Ethan waited.
Laura sat in the chair near the wall.
"In 2008, your father began moving money out of Carter Development."
Ethan knew the company.
Robert had built it from a small construction firm into one of the largest privately held real estate companies in the state.
Ethan worked there now as chief operating officer.
"Moving money where?"
"Shell corporations. Fake subcontractors. Properties held through other names."
"That's impossible."
"It isn't."
"I see the audits."
"Your father chooses the auditors."
Laura looked down at her hands.
"I discovered the accounts because one of the companies used my signature."
Ethan said nothing.
"At first I thought he was hiding money from taxes. Then I realized some of the properties didn't exist."
"What does that have to do with Daniel?"
"Robert was preparing to leave me."
Ethan frowned.
Laura shook her head.
"Not for Diane. Diane was already involved."
Ethan felt sick.
"Diane?"
"She worked for the company's accounting office. Your father and Diane were moving money together."
Ethan remembered Diane entering their lives less than two years after his mother's supposed death.
Robert had said they met at a charity dinner.
Another lie.
"When I confronted him, he threatened me. I told him I had copies of everything."
Laura looked toward the window.
"Three days later, he discovered I was pregnant."
Daniel.
"Why would that matter?"
"Because of your grandfather's trust."
Ethan knew about the Carter family trust.
His grandfather had created it before dying.
Robert controlled the company, but certain shares transferred to descendants under specific conditions.
Laura continued.
"Your grandfather didn't trust Robert. He structured the company so that when Robert's youngest biological child turned eighteen, control of a separate block of voting shares would pass equally to all of Robert's children."
Ethan stared.
"If Daniel existed..."
"Your father's control would eventually weaken."
"That's seventeen years later."
"Robert plans seventeen years ahead."
Laura's voice hardened.
"And there was something else. Your grandfather's trust had an automatic audit clause triggered by the birth of another heir."
Ethan finally understood.
Daniel's birth would have exposed the money.
"So Dad needed Daniel hidden."
"He needed both of us erased."
The car crash.
The funeral.
The fake death.
Ethan's stomach tightened.
"What happened at the lake?"
Laura closed her eyes.
"Your father drugged me."
Emily inhaled sharply.
Ethan did not move.
"I woke up in a hunting cabin near the Canadian border," Laura said. "I was eight months pregnant. Diane was there."
"Diane?"
"She told me the world believed I was dead."
Ethan's hands curled into fists.
"Why didn't you escape?"
"I tried."
Laura looked at him.
"They had documents prepared. Medical records claiming I had severe psychiatric problems. Financial records showing I'd stolen from the company. Robert told me if I returned, he would say I caused the crash and killed another woman."
"Another woman?"
Laura swallowed.
"There was a body in the car."
Ethan stared.
"Who?"
"I never knew."
The closed casket.
The dental identification.
Someone had burned inside his mother's vehicle so that Robert could manufacture Laura's death.
Ethan felt the edges of the room blur.
"Daniel was born six days after I woke up."
"The birth certificate says July twenty-first."
"Correct."
"What happened next?"
Laura's face tightened.
"Robert took him after two days."
Ethan could barely speak.
"You let him?"
"I was locked in a room."
The answer was so simple that it devastated him.
"I didn't see my baby again for thirteen years."
Emily spoke softly.
"What happened thirteen years later?"
Laura looked toward her.
"Robert brought him to see me."
"Why?"
"He wanted me to sign something."
"What?"
"An affidavit saying Daniel wasn't his son."
Ethan looked at the document again.
"Did you?"
"No."
"What did he do?"
"He took Daniel away."
Laura wiped her face.
"Daniel was old enough to understand that something was wrong. Before they left, he slipped a note under the bathroom door."
"What did it say?"
Laura reached into her coat pocket.
She unfolded a small piece of paper covered in childish handwriting.
Ethan took it.
It contained five words.
My name is Mason Reed.
Ethan looked up.
"Who is Mason Reed?"
May you like
Laura answered.
"The boy your brother thinks he is."
