Chapter 3 - THE BROTHER WHO SHOULD HAVE BEEN DEAD
"My brother is dead."
I said the words so quietly that the police officer beside me asked me to repeat them.
I stared at the photograph in my hand.
"Richard Hale died fifteen years ago."
Vanessa lowered her eyes.
"That's what you were told."
Something inside me turned cold.
Richard had been thirty-two when his car went off a mountain road in Colorado.
The wreckage was recovered.
His body had never been identified.
My father said there had been a fire and little left to examine.
I was twenty-six.
I attended the memorial, carried my mother's arm through the cemetery, and spent the next fifteen years believing my brother was gone.
Now his name was written beneath a threat against my daughter.
"What does Richard have to do with Sophie?" I demanded.
Vanessa looked toward the police officer.
"I need to speak with a detective."
"You can speak now."
"Owen, please."
The officer gently stepped between us.
"Mr. Hale, let us handle the questioning."
But I couldn't stop looking at Vanessa.
Four months earlier, I had stood beside her in a little garden ceremony and promised to love her for the rest of my life.
Now I didn't know whether I had married a stranger.
The paramedics prepared to take Natalie to the hospital.
Sophie began crying when they lifted her mother onto the stretcher.
I crouched beside her.
"Mommy needs the doctor, sweetheart."
"Mommy come?"
"Yes. We'll see her at the hospital."
Natalie reached for my hand.
"Owen, listen carefully."
I leaned closer.
"There's something in Sophie's bunny."
I frowned.
"What?"
"The stuffing. Near the left ear."
"How do you know?"
Natalie glanced toward Vanessa.
"Because your mother put it there."
My breath caught.
"My mother?"
Natalie nodded.
"Before she died."
The paramedic adjusted Natalie's blanket.
"We need to go."
Natalie squeezed my hand.
"Don't let anyone take that bunny away from Sophie."
Then they carried her outside.
I stood motionless.
My mother had died nine months before Sophie was born.
She had known Natalie was pregnant and had bought our daughter dozens of little gifts.
But I didn't remember any conversation about a stuffed bunny.
I certainly didn't remember anything hidden inside one.
Sophie was sitting on the couch, holding the rabbit against her chest.
"Bunny," she whispered when she noticed me looking.
I sat beside her.
"Yes, sweetheart."
Its left ear had been repaired with a tiny line of blue thread.
I remembered that stitching.
My mother had always used blue thread for repairs because she said white thread disappeared too easily.
But why would she hide something inside a child's toy?
The officers had already secured the basement and kitchen.
I asked permission to inspect the bunny.
One of them watched while I carefully loosened the stitching.
Inside was a folded piece of oilcloth.
I opened it.
A small brass key fell into my palm.
Attached was a handwritten note.
For Sophie, when Owen is ready to hear the truth.
The handwriting was unmistakably my mother's.
I felt suddenly weak.
At the bottom, she had written another sentence.
Ask Natalie about the lake house.
I looked toward the driveway, where the ambulance had just pulled away.
What did Natalie know about my family's old lake house?
And why had she never mentioned it?
The officer photographed the key and note before allowing me to place them back inside the oilcloth for evidence collection.
"Does that mean anything to you?" he asked.
"Not yet."
A detective arrived twenty minutes later.
Her name was Detective Sarah Collins.
She was in her late forties, with tired blue eyes and the steady voice of someone who had learned not to waste words.
She listened while I explained Richard's death, my mother's bracelet, the bunny, and Natalie's kidnapping.
Then she asked a question that made me hesitate.
"Mr. Hale, what do you know about your father's estate?"
"My father died three years ago."
"What did he leave?"
"The house, some investments, and a family trust."
"Who controls the trust?"
I frowned.
"A management company. Why?"
"How much is it worth?"
"About eight million dollars, last I heard."
Detective Collins studied me.
"Who receives it?"
"Eventually, Sophie."
She looked up.
"All of it?"
I nodded.
"My parents set it up before my mother died. I receive distributions for maintenance and education, but Sophie becomes the primary beneficiary when she's twenty-five."
"Who benefits if something happens to her?"
My mouth went dry.
"I don't know."
Detective Collins made a note.
"That's something we need to find out."
At the hospital, Natalie was diagnosed with a concussion and possible sedative exposure.
Doctors kept her for observation.
When Sophie saw her mother sitting upright in bed, she reached for her so desperately that I nearly cried again.
"Mommy!"
Natalie gathered her into her arms.
"I'm right here."
I sat beside them.
For several minutes, nobody spoke.
Then Natalie looked at me.
"You found the key."
I nodded.
"Why didn't you tell me?"
She closed her eyes.
"Your mother made me promise."
"Promise what?"
"That I wouldn't tell you until I knew Richard couldn't hurt you."
I stared at her.
"You knew he was alive?"
Natalie's face tightened.
"I suspected."
"How long?"
"Almost two years."
I stood.
"Two years?"
"Owen, please."
"You let me believe my brother was dead."
"I didn't know for certain."
"But you knew enough to hide things from me."
She looked down at Sophie.
"Lower your voice. You're frightening her."
I glanced at my daughter.
She had stopped playing with Natalie's bracelet.
Her eyes were fixed on me.
I swallowed my anger.
"You're right."
I kissed Sophie's forehead and stepped into the hallway.
Natalie followed after asking a nurse to watch Sophie for a moment.
She was pale and unsteady.
I wanted to help her.
I also wanted answers.
"Why didn't you trust me?" I asked.
Natalie's eyes filled.
"Because the last time I tried to tell you something about your family, you accused me of trying to destroy them."
I remembered.
Three years earlier, Natalie had discovered irregular withdrawals from the family trust.
She believed my father was concealing something.
I had dismissed her concerns.
We fought terribly.
It was the beginning of the distance that eventually ended our marriage.
Now the memory made me ashamed.
"What did you find?" I asked.
Natalie took a slow breath.
"Your mother discovered Richard was stealing from the trust before he disappeared. But that wasn't the worst part."
"What was?"
"She believed your father helped him disappear."
I leaned against the wall.
Natalie continued.
"Your mother had proof. She hid it at the lake house. The brass key opens something she wanted Sophie to have someday."
"Why Sophie?"
"Because your mother changed the trust after she learned what Richard had done."
I rubbed my forehead.
"Then why is Vanessa involved?"
Natalie hesitated.
"She came to see me six weeks before your wedding."
I looked up.
"What?"
"She offered me fifty thousand dollars to move out of state."
I stared at her.
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"I tried. Remember the afternoon I asked you to meet me at the diner?"
I remembered.
I had canceled because Vanessa said she was sick.
Natalie gave a sad smile.
"After that, I thought telling you would only push you further away."
Before I could answer, Detective Collins approached.
She had a clear evidence bag in her hand.
Inside was a phone recovered from Vanessa's car.
"We found messages between your wife and a man calling himself Richard."
My pulse quickened.
"Is he alive?"
"We're working on confirming that."
She paused.
"There's something else."
She showed me a photograph attached to one of the messages.
It had been taken three weeks earlier.
Vanessa stood beside a gray-haired man outside a restaurant.
I knew his face.
The crooked smile.
The deep scar near his left eyebrow.
It was Richard.
Older.
Heavier.
But unquestionably alive.
Then Detective Collins enlarged the photograph.
My chest tightened.
Because standing beside Richard and Vanessa was a third person.
A woman I knew better than almost anyone.
May you like
Natalie's mother, Margaret.
And she was smiling.
