Chapter 11 - The Man Who Died Twice
Federal records showed Franklin Ward died of pancreatic cancer at age sixty-eight.
Obituary.
Funeral.
Probate.
Cremation.
Photographs.
Everything.
Special Agent Reed had them all.
Yet Derek insisted Ward remained alive.
"Did you see him?" Reed asked.
"Three years ago."
"Where?"
"Arizona."
"You're sure?"
"He spoke to me for forty minutes."
"Could it have been someone using his name?"
Derek shook his head.
"My mother knew him. It was Ward."
Richard listened through the video connection.
"What did he want?"
"He said Claire's file needed to stay dormant."
Claire's expression hardened.
"Meaning what?"
"No loans. No insurance. No public financial activity tied to the duplicate identity."
"Why?"
"I don't know."
"Then what changed?"
Derek hesitated.
"Lily."
Claire sat forward.
"What about Lily?"
"When she was born, Horizon automatically created a derivative profile."
Richard did not understand.
Reed did.
"A linked identity?"
Derek nodded.
Claire's voice became dangerous.
"They created records for my daughter?"
"I didn't know until later."
"What records?"
"Trusts. Insurance. Maybe more."
Claire stood so fast the chair hit the wall.
Richard caught her shoulders.
Derek hurried.
"I tried to shut it down."
"By stealing her college fund?"
"I needed money to pay Marion."
"Why?"
"To keep Lily's profile dormant."
Claire laughed in disbelief.
"So every terrible thing you did was somehow protecting us?"
"No."
At least he answered that correctly.
"No," Derek repeated. "I kept telling myself that. It wasn't true."
Claire slowly sat.
Derek looked directly at her.
"I was scared. Then greedy. Then trapped."
Agent Reed asked, "Why did you begin targeting pharmacy patients?"
"Marion said I owed back payments."
"For what?"
"He said Horizon had covered costs associated with Claire and Lily."
"Costs?"
"Keeping duplicate identities inactive. Paying people. Maintaining records."
Richard said, "Extortion."
Derek nodded.
"They knew I didn't have money."
"So they suggested theft," Reed said.
"Marion gave me names."
Claire froze.
"Names from my pharmacy?"
Derek looked away.
"Some."
"How did Marion know my patients?"
"I gave him access."
Claire's eyes filled.
Derek continued.
"I thought we'd take small amounts, move them, then replace them."
"From elderly people."
"I know."
"You picked people you thought wouldn't notice."
He cried.
"Yes."
Claire looked at Richard.
There was nothing left to salvage in her marriage.
Not trust.
Not history.
Not even the comforting lie that Derek's crimes were accidental.
Whatever coercion Horizon used, Derek had crossed lines willingly.
Agent Reed returned to Ward.
"If Franklin Ward is alive, how does he communicate?"
"Through Marion."
"Location?"
"I don't know."
"Accounts?"
"Layered."
"Names?"
"Dozens."
Derek looked exhausted.
Then he added something unexpected.
"Ask my mother about the church."
Richard frowned.
"What church?"
"St. Gabriel's."
Claire recognized it.
Margaret attended twice a month.
"Why?"
Derek whispered, "She hides things there."
Agent Reed immediately dispatched a team.
St. Gabriel's Catholic Church sat in an older neighborhood outside Madison.
Margaret had donated to it for years.
Investigators located a safe behind a removable panel inside a storage room used by the church's charitable foundation.
The priest claimed no knowledge of it.
Inside were passports.
Three names for Margaret Collins.
Two names for Monica Hale.
A passport photograph of Owen Marion.
$93,000 cash.
And seventeen birth certificates.
All belonged to living people.
Most did not know duplicate certificates existed.
One belonged to Claire.
One belonged to Lily.
Another belonged to Ethan.
But the seventeenth stunned Richard.
Susan Bennett.
His late wife.
Issued twenty-nine years earlier under a slightly different certificate number.
Richard stared at it.
"They duplicated Susan too."
Reed nodded.
This was not random.
Horizon had touched multiple members of the Bennett family.
Claire.
Susan.
Lily.
Why?
Denise began tracing the duplicate certificate numbers.
Patterns emerged.
Each was connected to a dormant financial profile.
Susan's duplicate identity once owned shares in a private holding company.
Claire's duplicate identity was beneficiary of old trusts.
Lily's duplicate identity had recently become the listed owner of an LLC.
Richard looked at Denise's screen.
"What LLC?"
She enlarged the record.
North Lake Agricultural Holdings.
"What's it own?"
Denise searched property databases.
Her expression changed.
"Land."
"How much?"
"Six hundred and forty acres."
Claire stared.
"Where?"
"Outside Cedar Vale."
Richard knew the name.
A rural community about fifty miles north.
"What is it worth?"
"Maybe four million."
Claire shook her head.
"My six-year-old daughter owns four million dollars of land?"
"No," Reed said. "A duplicate identity using her name owns it."
Richard looked at the incorporation date.
Two weeks earlier.
"What changed two weeks ago?"
Claire knew.
"Derek's property closing."
The rural property Natalie had shown them.
Collins Restoration's land sat only eleven miles from North Lake Agricultural Holdings.
Reed mapped both locations.
Then she overlaid historical property records.
The land parcels had once been part of one estate.
Owned thirty-two years earlier by Horizon Family Services.
Claire stared.
The story was circling back to her birth.
Thirty-two years ago, Horizon moved her newborn identity through private records.
Now Horizon-linked land was being placed under Lily's duplicate identity.
Derek had attempted to buy neighboring property.
Not for a second family.
Not primarily.
He had been trying to reach something.
Reed called him again.
"What is on the property?"
Derek went pale.
"I don't know."
"Why did Marion want you to buy adjacent land?"
"He said there were archives."
"What kind?"
"Paper."
"Records?"
Derek nodded.
"Original records."
Claire's breath caught.
"Original Claire file."
Derek closed his eyes.
"Maybe."
Richard asked, "Where exactly?"
"I never got coordinates."
"Who has them?"
"My mother."
Again.
Margaret.
Missing.
Wounded or pretending.
Protecting Claire or manipulating her.
Richard was beginning to understand Susan's final warning.
Do not confront Margaret alone.
Not because Margaret was simply dangerous.
Because Margaret knew enough truth to become dangerous to everyone.
Then Richard's phone rang.
Unknown number.
He answered.
No voice.
Only church bells.
Three slow chimes.
Then a woman whispered.
"Richard."
He recognized Margaret.
"Where are you?"
"Don't ask."
"Are you hurt?"
"Not badly."
"Who hurt you?"
"Owen's people."
"Where's Derek?"
"Alive?"
"Yes."
Margaret began crying.
Richard hardened.
"We found the church safe."
Silence.
"Then you found Lily's certificate."
"Yes."
"Richard, you need to listen."
"I'm listening."
"The land isn't important because of the records."
"What is it?"
A pause.
"The records are evidence."
"Of what?"
Margaret whispered, "That Claire wasn't Horizon's first duplicate."
Richard closed his eyes.
"Who was?"
Margaret answered.
"Susan."
He looked toward Claire.
Margaret continued.
"And Susan wasn't the first Bennett."
Richard felt cold.
"What does that mean?"
"The program began with your family."
The call disconnected.
Richard stared at the phone.
For thirty-two years he had thought Horizon had reached into his family.
May you like
Margaret had just suggested something far worse.
His family had been there at the beginning.
