Chapter 2 - the night mara vanished)
Detective Ava Shaw arrived at the hospital shortly after midnight.
She was forty one, calm, sharp eyed, and immediately skeptical of coincidences.
Daniel showed her the threatening messages.
Ava photographed the screen.
"Don't respond."
"Someone knows what Lily told me."
"Who was in the room?"
"Only me."
"Did you call anyone afterward?"
"No."
Ava looked toward Lily.
"Then either someone is watching you, or someone expected her to start remembering."
Daniel told her about Mara.
He told her about the storm.
The car.
The lake.
The missing body.
Eighteen months earlier Mara Reed had left their home shortly after ten at night.
Her vehicle was discovered the next morning on a steep embankment beside Lake Marrow.
The driver's door was crushed.
The windshield was shattered.
There was blood on the steering wheel.
The car had partially submerged before being caught by fallen trees.
Search teams spent eleven days looking for Mara.
Nothing.
No body.
No clothing.
No phone.
No handbag.
Investigators concluded that she had been thrown from the vehicle and swept into the lake.
Daniel had never completely believed it.
But grief had eventually exhausted him.
Six months later, pressured by insurers and Lydia, he had reluctantly signed documents declaring Mara legally dead.
Ava listened without interrupting.
Then she asked a question nobody had asked eighteen months earlier.
"Who benefited financially?"
Daniel frowned.
"What?"
"From your wife's death."
"Nobody."
"Think again."
Daniel looked down.
"Mara had a trust."
"How large?"
"I don't know exactly. Her family owned Vale Industries. Her father created trusts for Mara and her mother."
"Who controlled Mara's trust after her death?"
Daniel suddenly understood.
"Lydia."
Ava nodded.
"How much?"
"Maybe twelve million."
Ava wrote something.
"That's not nobody."
Daniel felt ashamed that the thought had never occurred to him.
"Lydia already had money."
"People with money commit crimes for money every day."
Daniel looked toward Lily.
"There has to be more than that."
"Probably."
Ava lowered her notebook.
"Tell me about Lydia's relationship with Mara."
"Complicated."
"That's usually another word for bad."
Daniel almost smiled despite himself.
"Mara loved her mother. But she didn't trust her."
"Why?"
"Mara's father died when she was sixteen. After that Lydia became controlling. She chose Mara's schools. Her friends. Even where she worked."
"And when Mara married you?"
"Lydia hated it."
"Why?"
"I wasn't from their world."
Ava nodded.
"Did Mara ever say she was afraid of her mother?"
Daniel thought.
"Not exactly."
Then he remembered something.
Three weeks before the accident, Mara had awakened him at two in the morning.
She had been standing beside the bedroom window.
Daniel had asked what was wrong.
Mara had said, "If anything ever happens to me, don't let my mother make decisions for Lily."
He had laughed nervously.
Mara had not.
Daniel told Ava.
The detective's pen stopped moving.
"Why wasn't that in the original report?"
"Because I thought she meant custody if she got sick."
"Did you tell investigators?"
"I don't remember."
Ava closed the notebook.
"We need to reopen everything."
The next morning Lily was medically stable.
Before leaving the hospital, Ava asked if Lily could answer one question.
Daniel agreed.
Ava sat beside the bed.
"Lily, your dad says your mom gave you something the night she disappeared."
Lily nodded.
"A bird."
"Where did you hide it?"
"Behind the moon."
Ava glanced at Daniel.
"Is there something shaped like a moon in your house?"
Daniel suddenly remembered.
Lily's old bedroom.
Before Mara disappeared, Lily had a large wooden moon decoration hanging over her bed.
After the accident Daniel redecorated the room because everything reminded Lily of her mother.
The wooden moon had been stored in the attic.
Daniel and Ava drove home together.
The garage was sealed with police tape.
Lydia was being held for questioning.
Daniel went directly to the attic.
He found the moon beneath a stack of framed photographs.
The wooden decoration was hollow.
Behind it, taped to the back panel, was a tiny silver bird pendant.
And beneath the pendant was a folded piece of paper.
Daniel opened it.
There were only three things written on it.
B17.
A date.
And the initials T V.
The date was two days after Mara's supposed death.
Ava took the paper carefully.
"Do you know anyone with the initials T V?"
Daniel did.
Thomas Vane.
Mara's family attorney.
The same man who had handled Mara's death certificate.
May you like
The same man who had transferred control of Mara's trust to Lydia.
And the same man who had personally convinced Daniel to stop searching the lake.
