Chapter 6 - THE DRIVER
The taxi driver was a woman in her sixties with silver hair cut close to her chin.
She wore dark glasses even though the sun had nearly disappeared.
Parker opened the front door before Clarissa could reach it.
“Who sent you?”
The woman looked past him.
“Mrs. Vale requested a car.”
“No, she didn’t.”
The driver removed her glasses.
A pale scar crossed her right eyebrow.
“Then she can tell me herself.”
Clarissa stepped forward with Dustin.
“I requested it.”
Parker looked back at her.
“How?”
“The landline.”
It was a weak lie, but he could not disprove it without checking every call.
Parker lowered his voice.
“You leave this house, and you lose any chance of resolving this privately.”
Clarissa placed a hand on Dustin’s shoulder.
“You fed my son scraps. You stole my property. You froze my money. Privacy is no longer my concern.”
Alana approached from behind him.
“You are making a mistake.”
Clarissa faced her.
“No. I made a mistake when I believed you were family.”
Dustin walked outside.
Clarissa followed.
Parker caught her arm again.
The driver opened the trunk, then looked directly at his hand.
“Sir, release her.”
Parker did.
Clarissa and Dustin entered the back seat.
The driver pulled away before Parker could change his mind.
As the house disappeared behind them, Dustin leaned into Clarissa.
“Are they going to find us?”
“Not tonight.”
She hoped it was true.
The driver watched them through the mirror.
“You have the rabbit?”
Clarissa’s body went rigid.
“Who are you?”
“My name is Evelyn Shaw.”
“How do you know about the rabbit?”
“Thomas asked me to watch for the day you needed help.”
“My father?”
Evelyn nodded.
Clarissa glanced toward Dustin.
“Did you send the recording?”
“No.”
“Did Nathan Cole?”
“I don’t know.”
“You expect me to believe my dead father arranged a taxi four years after his death?”
Evelyn drove in silence for several seconds.
“Your father expected Parker to move eventually. He hoped you would discover the truth sooner.”
“What truth?”
“That Parker married you for access to the Vale properties.”
Clarissa felt nauseated.
“He did not know who my father was when we met.”
“Yes, he did.”
“No.”
“Parker worked for Victor Hale. Hale had been trying to acquire your father’s waterfront land for years.”
Clarissa remembered Parker telling her he had worked in financial consulting before joining Hale Development.
“Parker said he met Victor after we married.”
“Parker says many things.”
Evelyn turned onto a narrow road lined with trees.
“Your father discovered Parker’s connection six months before he died. He hired investigators. He learned that Parker’s relationship with you began two weeks after Hale obtained your private employment records.”
Clarissa stared at the back of the driver’s seat.
Her memories rearranged themselves.
Parker appearing at the café where she worked.
Parker knowing she loved old mystery novels.
Parker surprising her with tickets to a concert she had mentioned only on a private social media account.
She had believed their meeting was fate.
“What did my father do?”
“He confronted Parker.”
“And then he died.”
Evelyn’s hands tightened around the steering wheel.
“Yes.”
“Was it an accident?”
“No.”
The answer came without hesitation.
Dustin sat up.
“Mom?”
Clarissa forced herself to breathe.
“How do you know?”
“Because Thomas called me from Facility Twelve that night.”
“The storage facility.”
Evelyn looked at her through the mirror.
“You found the photograph.”
“How?”
“Thomas told me he sent it.”
“Why didn’t you go to the police?”
“I did. The detective assigned to the case was Victor Hale’s brother-in-law.”
Clarissa closed her eyes.
Every path seemed to lead back to the same family.
“What is the red key for?”
Evelyn glanced toward Dustin’s backpack.
“It opens a safe-deposit mechanism beneath the lake house.”
“A safe?”
“Not exactly.”
“What is inside?”
“Evidence your father collected against Hale.”
Clarissa opened the backpack and removed Mr. Rabbit.
She pushed her fingers into the torn seam and pulled stuffing from the left leg.
A metal object slid into her palm.
It was not a key.
It was a narrow red cylinder marked with numbers.
Dustin touched it.
“That’s what Grandpa gave me.”
Evelyn stared at it in the mirror.
Then she abruptly slammed on the brakes.
A black SUV blocked the road ahead.
Another vehicle appeared behind them.
May you like
Evelyn locked the doors.
“They found us.”
