Chapter 12 - Emma Carter’s Missing Father
Emma left the interview room shaking.
Not visibly.
She had become good at hiding it.
But Claire noticed.
“My father was a teacher.”
“Then verify it.”
Emma called her aunt Elaine.
Her mother’s older sister.
Elaine lived in Vermont.
They had not spoken in months.
When Emma asked about her father, Elaine became silent.
“Why are you asking now?”
“Because someone told me he worked for a man named Leonard Voss.”
Elaine inhaled sharply.
Emma closed her eyes.
“That reaction just answered me.”
“Emma.”
“What did he do?”
“He taught school.”
“And?”
“He consulted during summers.”
“For who?”
“Medical transport companies.”
“Voss?”
Elaine began crying.
“Yes.”
Emma sat down.
Her father, Michael Carter, died in what Emma had always believed was a highway accident.
His vehicle crossed a median during heavy rain.
He was thirty-four.
Emma was six.
“What happened?”
Elaine whispered, “Your mother never believed it was an accident.”
Emma stopped breathing.
“What?”
“Michael was frightened before he died.”
“Of what?”
“He found shipping records.”
Emma almost laughed.
Not because it was funny.
Because the pattern had become unbearable.
Everyone found records.
Everyone became frightened.
Everyone disappeared or died.
“What records?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did Mom?”
“She knew more than she told me.”
Emma’s mother had died when Emma was nineteen from pancreatic cancer.
There would be no conversation.
No explanation.
Only old boxes in Elaine’s attic.
Elaine agreed to search them.
Three hours later she called.
“I found a notebook.”
Emma put the phone on speaker for Hayes.
Elaine read an entry.
June 14.
Voss says the Miller contract will solve cash flow. Thomas seems decent. His wife worries me.
Emma looked at Hayes.
Thomas Miller.
Daniel’s father.
Their fathers had known each other.
Elaine continued.
July 2.
LC insists patient identities are clean. They aren’t.
Hayes asked, “LC?”
Emma knew.
“Leonard Cole?”
No.
Steven Cole’s father.
Lawrence Cole.
The older generation.
This network predated Martha.
Maybe even Voss.
Elaine read another entry.
August 19.
If I can prove the trial shipments were substituted, everything collapses.
Emma frowned.
“Trial shipments?”
Hayes sat forward.
“Read the next page.”
Elaine went quiet.
“It was torn out.”
Emma closed her eyes.
“What’s the last entry?”
Elaine turned pages.
“September 1.”
Her voice changed.
“Michael wrote: Thomas called. He found the same discrepancy. Meeting him tomorrow.”
Emma stared at Hayes.
Thomas Miller died September 2.
Emma’s father died September 6.
Four days apart.
Their deaths had been separated by two states.
Different circumstances.
Different newspapers.
Different families.
But now they sat on the same timeline.
Hayes said quietly, “This just became older than Martha’s operation.”
Emma asked Elaine to send photographs of every notebook page.
Before ending the call, Elaine hesitated.
“There’s one more thing.”
“What?”
“A photograph.”
“Of Dad?”
“Yes.”
“With Thomas Miller.”
Emma’s throat tightened.
“Who else?”
Elaine stared at something offscreen.
“A young woman.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know.”
“Show me.”
Elaine held the photograph toward the camera.
Emma leaned closer.
Her father stood beside Thomas Miller.
Between them was a young woman with dark hair and green eyes.
Emma knew that face.
Laura.
But the photograph had been taken eighteen years before Ethan was born.
Laura should have been a teenager.
Instead, the woman appeared at least thirty.
Emma whispered, “That isn’t possible.”
Hayes studied the image.
“Maybe that isn’t Laura.”
Emma stared.
The resemblance was perfect.
Elaine turned the photograph over.
A name was written on the back.
Dr. Evelyn Shaw.
Emma felt the blood leave her face.
Because Sophie’s middle name was Evelyn.
May you like
Daniel had chosen it.
He always said he simply liked the name.
