Chapter 5 - THE PRICE OF A MOTHER'S SILENCE
“Find Grace?”
I stood so quickly that pain tore across my healing abdomen.
Naomi reached for my arm.
“Abigail, sit down.”
“Richard knows she's alive?”
“We don't know exactly what he knows.”
“You just said he ordered someone to find her.”
“Yes. That's why we're taking additional precautions.”
I looked toward Grace.
She was asleep in the hospital bassinet, her tiny hands curled beside her face.
A child who had barely entered the world was already the target of a man determined to protect his money.
Her own father.
I had spent the first days after the storm imagining what I would say when I saw Richard again.
Now I understood words would never be enough.
I needed proof.
And I needed to stay alive long enough to use it.
Naomi arranged for Grace and me to move to a protected family residence once the medical team approved our discharge.
Martha insisted on coming with us.
“Samuel can manage the cabin,” she said. “You need someone who remembers how to make soup and change a diaper.”
I nearly smiled.
It was the first ordinary kindness I'd heard in days.
But before leaving the hospital, I received something I hadn't expected.
A package delivered through Naomi's office.
It contained a folded navy-blue baby blanket.
Grace's blanket.
The one Richard had insisted we leave at home because, according to him, the SUV was already warm.
I recognized the little embroidered rabbit in the corner.
Inside the blanket was a note.
He didn't know I changed the vehicle records. I thought it would be enough. I'm sorry. —C
I stared at the handwriting.
Claire.
She had known.
Maybe not everything.
But enough to understand Grace and I were in danger.
And she had tried to leave a trail.
That night, Naomi explained what investigators had learned.
Claire had approached them through an attorney after Richard ordered a private security contractor to investigate reports of an unidentified woman and infant rescued from the mountain.
Richard suspected we'd survived.
He had no confirmed location.
But he was searching.
“He's also accelerating the wedding,” Naomi said.
“How soon?”
“Ten days.”
I looked at her.
“Then we have ten days to stop him.”
“Stopping him requires evidence strong enough to survive in court.”
“Claire has evidence.”
“Some. But she fears he can implicate her in several transactions.”
“Was she involved?”
Naomi hesitated.
“Yes.”
That answer hurt more than I expected.
Claire wasn't innocent.
She had helped Richard move money.
She had signed false invoices.
She had benefited from expensive gifts and a senior position.
But perhaps she had also reached a point where complicity became unbearable.
I remembered her carrying Grace's gifts into the nursery.
She had stood beside the crib for a long time.
At the time, I thought she was admiring the decorations.
Now I wondered whether she'd been saying goodbye.
Two days later, I finally spoke with Claire.
Not by telephone.
Naomi arranged a secure meeting at a government office.
Claire entered wearing a plain gray coat.
Without her expensive jewelry and carefully styled hair, she looked exhausted.
She stopped when she saw me.
“Oh, Abigail.”
I didn't stand.
“Don't.”
She swallowed.
“I deserve that.”
“You knew Richard wanted us gone.”
“Yes.”
“How much did you know?”
She pulled out a chair but didn't sit.
“I knew he planned to take you somewhere remote. I knew he intended to tell people you were unstable. He said he'd bring you to a private psychiatric facility.”
“And you believed him?”
“For longer than I should have.”
“Even after you saw the mountain route?”
Claire's eyes filled.
“I confronted him. He told me you were already receiving care and that the trip was arranged by a specialist.”
I shook my head.
“You helped him build the lie.”
“Yes.”
The simple admission left me speechless.
Claire finally sat.
“When I realized he had taken you toward the closed pass, I drove the utility truck to intercept him. I found him near the maintenance station.”
Samuel's account returned to me.
The black SUV.
The gray truck.
The red envelope.
“What did he give you?”
“Instructions to destroy your financial records. He said you'd had a breakdown and fled with the baby.”
“Did you believe that?”
“No. Not after I saw the empty carrier base in his vehicle.”
She covered her face.
“I followed his tire tracks as far as I could. The road was nearly impassable. I found the carrier's broken sunshade near the shoulder, but I couldn't find you.”
“Then you moved the barricade.”
“Yes. I knew Samuel Bennett patrolled that area during storms. I used the satellite transmitter and left the bracelet under Grace's carrier when I found it.”
I stared at her.
“You found the carrier?”
“Only the loose base. Your husband had thrown it into the snow. I knew you must have taken Grace out.”
“And you didn't keep searching?”
“I did. Until the truck slid into a drainage ditch.”
She lowered her eyes.
“I spent an hour digging it out. By then, the storm was too bad.”
I wanted to hate her completely.
Part of me still did.
But another part remembered the bracelet that had helped reveal the truth.
“Why are you marrying him?”
Claire looked up.
“Because Richard believes I stole twenty million dollars from him.”
“Did you?”
“I redirected some of his money into accounts investigators could trace and freeze. But I signed documents that make it look like I stole it personally.”
“Then why not simply refuse the wedding?”
“Because he's holding something over me.”
“What?”
“My younger brother, Michael, has a serious disability. Richard controls the trust paying for his long-term care. He's threatened to cut off everything.”
I studied her face.
“That's cruel.”
“Yes.”
“But it doesn't excuse what you did to us.”
“I know.”
For the first time, Claire didn't defend herself.
That mattered.
She opened her purse and placed a small velvet box on the table.
Inside was a gold necklace bearing another lion charm.
“Evelyn gave me this before the storm.”
“Why?”
“She said the lion belonged to your family. That your father hid something inside his original trust records.”
I touched the necklace.
“The lion keeps what the fox cannot steal.”
Claire nodded.
“Richard has been searching for the original corporate seal. He thinks it gives access to a protected archive containing proof of your father's ownership.”
“Where is it?”
“I don't know. But Richard believes it's connected to a watch.”
Samuel's silver pocket watch.
My heart skipped.
Before I could speak, Claire leaned closer.
“Abigail, there's something else.”
“What?”
“Richard has been telling investors that your father approved the original transfers.”
“He didn't.”
“I know.”
She opened a slim folder.
Inside was a copy of an internal audit from seven years earlier.
At the bottom was my father's name.
Edward Hayes.
Next to it was an approval signature.
And beside that, a date.
November 3.
My father had died on October 19.
Richard had forged the signature of a dead man.
But when I looked at the second page, I saw something even more disturbing.
The forged document had been witnessed by someone I trusted.
Someone who had stood beside me at my father's funeral.
May you like
My mother's younger sister.
Aunt Margaret.
