Chapter 12 - THE DAUGHTER MARIANNE NEVER KNEW
The road to Lake Cole wound through forested hills.
Marianne waited until Halpern turned on the radio to speak.
“What daughter?”
Thomas kept his gaze on the passing trees.
“Her name is Claire.”
“How old?”
“Thirty-one.”
The number struck her.
Derek was thirty-three.
“Is she yours?”
“Yes.”
Marianne withdrew her hand.
“Before we married?”
“During.”
Pain came with astonishing clarity.
Even after fake deaths, hidden prisons, and criminal conspiracies, betrayal remained painfully ordinary.
“Who is her mother?”
“Rebecca.”
Marianne looked at him.
Naomi’s sister.
Thomas continued quickly.
“It was not what you think.”
“That sentence has never improved the truth.”
“Rebecca and I were undercover inside Pike’s foundation.”
“You slept with her for the investigation?”
“No.”
“Then explain.”
Thomas’s face tightened.
“Claire is not biologically mine.”
Marianne said nothing.
“Her mother was a patient at Rosewood. She died during an illegal trial. Rebecca rescued the infant. I falsified documents to keep Pike from finding her.”
“And you called her your daughter.”
“I helped raise her for two years through a safe family.”
“Did Rebecca?”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because anyone connected to Claire became a target.”
Marianne wanted to believe that was the only reason.
But eight years of lies had made belief expensive.
“Where is she now?”
“Federal financial crimes prosecutor.”
“Under Rourke?”
“No. Independent counsel in another district.”
“Does she know about me?”
“She knows everything.”
Marianne turned toward the window.
A daughter she had never met knew her life while she had known nothing.
Thomas placed the memory card beneath the seam of her coat.
“Claire can authenticate Vale’s recordings.”
“How do we contact her?”
“She will contact us.”
“When?”
“When Rebecca triggers the archive release.”
Rourke glanced back.
“Whispering is unnecessary. I know about Claire.”
Thomas went still.
Rourke smiled.
“I have known for years.”
“Then why is she alive?”
“Because she believes I am one of the good men.”
The convoy turned onto the private road leading to Lake Cole.
Marianne’s family had owned the property for three generations. A cedar house stood near the water, surrounded by fifty acres of forest.
She had not visited since Thomas died.
Derek had asked repeatedly to sell it.
Now she understood why.
At the gate, Rourke entered a code.
“You changed the locks,” Marianne said.
“Derek gave us access.”
The vehicles stopped beside the house.
Pike was waiting on the porch.
Derek stood beside him with a bandage around his wrist.
Marianne stepped from the vehicle.
Her son would not meet her eyes.
Pike descended the steps.
“You made this unnecessarily dramatic.”
“You murdered Dr. Vale in my kitchen.”
“He chose an unfortunate location to confess.”
“Did he tell you about the recordings?”
Pike looked toward Rourke.
Rourke’s expression remained unreadable.
A division existed between them.
Marianne realized each man believed the other possessed information he lacked.
That weakness might be their only chance.
Thomas led them through the house to the old study.
He removed a floorboard beneath the fireplace.
Below it was a steel box.
Pike leaned forward.
Thomas lifted the box.
It was empty.
Rourke drew his gun.
“Where is the ledger?”
Thomas looked at Marianne.
“She moved it.”
Every face turned toward her.
Marianne stared at him.
“I did what?”
“Eight years ago, the night before the crash, I came home late. You were asleep on the sofa. I hid the ledger inside the blue music box in the attic.”
Marianne remembered the music box.
It had belonged to her mother.
After Thomas died, Derek packed the attic and moved several items into storage.
“I never opened it.”
“No,” Thomas said. “But someone did.”
Derek’s face changed.
Marianne saw it.
“You found the ledger.”
Derek backed away.
Pike turned toward him.
“When?”
Derek shook his head.
“I didn’t.”
“You wanted this property because you knew it was hidden here,” Marianne said.
“I wanted what Dad promised.”
Thomas stepped closer.
“You took the music box.”
“I threw it away.”
“Where?”
“I don’t remember.”
Pike grabbed Derek by the shirt.
“Do you understand what that ledger is worth?”
Derek shoved him.
“I said I don’t have it.”
Rourke raised his gun toward Pike.
“Release him.”
Pike laughed.
“Now you protect the boy?”
“I protect the location of my property.”
Pike’s men drew their weapons.
Halpern stepped between both groups.
For several seconds, the study became a room full of guns and uncertain loyalties.
Marianne slowly moved toward the desk.
An old landline telephone sat beneath a cloth cover.
She remembered Thomas installing a separate emergency line after a winter storm.
It ran underground to the ranger station.
She reached behind the desk and lifted the receiver.
No dial tone.
Derek saw her.
“The line was cut years ago.”
Marianne met his eyes.
He looked afraid.
Not of Pike.
Not of Rourke.
Of her.
She understood.
“You did not throw away the music box.”
Derek said nothing.
“You gave it to me last Christmas.”
Thomas looked toward Marianne.
She continued.
“You refinished it and said it was the only thing of Grandma’s you could save.”
The music box sat in Marianne’s bedroom at home.
The house currently sealed as a murder scene.
Rourke lowered his gun slightly.
“The ledger is in the city.”
Pike released Derek.
“No. Vale searched the house before he died.”
Marianne remembered the nightstand drawer open when she left that morning.
“He did not find it,” she said.
“How can you know?”
“Because the music box has a false bottom.”
Thomas stared at her.
“You knew?”
“My mother used it to hide cash.”
Derek’s eyes widened.
Marianne smiled without warmth.
“You never discovered the second compartment.”
A phone rang.
Everyone looked toward Rourke.
He answered.
His face changed as he listened.
“What happened?” Pike demanded.
Rourke lowered the phone.
“Rosewood is on fire.”
Naomi’s vehicle had never reached the lake.
May you like
Rebecca had taken control of it.
And every hidden archive beneath Rosewood was now being transmitted to the press.
