Chapter 5 - THE FAVORITE SON
For several seconds, nobody spoke.
Natalie stared at the coat hanging inside the locker.
Her father was dead.
She knew that.
She had seen his body.
She had kissed his forehead.
But her mother’s note turned memory into something unstable.
“He might need to look dead again.”
Tyler repeated the sentence through the speakerphone.
“What does that even mean?”
Dana examined the coat without touching it.
“It could mean intimidation. Disguise. A symbol.”
“Or Dad isn’t dead,” Tyler said.
Natalie snapped toward the phone.
“Stop.”
“You’re thinking it too.”
“No.”
She refused to let grief become fantasy.
Dana found a small stitched opening inside the coat lining.
Something had been hidden there.
Not now.
Only the cut threads remained.
Marisol frowned.
“Your mother removed it?”
“Maybe.”
Natalie’s phone displayed six missed calls from competition administration.
She had media rehearsal in twenty minutes.
Her entire career was approaching its most important day while her family imploded six floors below.
“I have to go.”
Tyler laughed harshly.
“Of course you do.”
Natalie froze.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You always get to leave.”
The accusation hit harder than she expected.
“I got thrown out of the house last night.”
“You wanted to leave for years.”
“And you wanted me to stay so I could keep rescuing you.”
Tyler’s face hardened.
“Everything isn’t about you being the responsible one.”
“No. Sometimes it’s about you smashing my skates.”
He looked away.
Then said quietly, “You think Mom loved me more.”
Natalie almost answered immediately.
Instead she waited.
Tyler continued.
“She was afraid of me more.”
“What?”
“After Dad died, I started doing stupid things because stupid things made her look at me.”
He gave a miserable smile.
“You became perfect. I became an emergency.”
“That doesn’t make what she did okay.”
“I know.”
For the first time in years, Tyler sounded like her brother instead of her opponent.
Then he ruined it.
“I still need you to help me.”
Natalie closed her eyes.
“Help is not the same as paying your debt.”
“I know.”
“Say it.”
He glared.
“What?”
“Say you understand I’m not giving you twelve thousand dollars.”
His jaw worked.
Finally:
“I understand.”
It was a small thing.
It felt enormous.
Dana interrupted.
“We found something in Northstar’s transfers.”
She displayed a sequence of payments.
Tyler had received money under Natalie’s false consulting account.
But he had not received all of it.
Every payment split automatically.
Sixty percent went to Tyler-controlled accounts.
Forty percent went somewhere else.
The second recipient was identified only by initials.
E.C.
Natalie stared.
Evelyn Carter.
Their mother.
Tyler shook his head violently.
“No.”
“Did Mom receive money?”
“I swear I didn’t know.”
Dana opened the destination data.
The funds did not go into Evelyn’s regular bank account.
They went toward payments on a medical financing plan.
Natalie frowned.
“Mom isn’t sick.”
Tyler looked down.
“She was.”
Natalie felt another betrayal forming.
“What?”
“Breast cancer.”
The room became silent.
“When?”
“Two years ago.”
Natalie sat.
“No.”
“Surgery. Radiation. She’s okay now.”
“Why didn’t anyone tell me?”
Tyler laughed once without humor.
“Because you were qualifying for nationals.”
Natalie looked at him as if he had struck her.
“She made me promise.”
“For two years?”
“She said you finally had your chance.”
Natalie’s anger collapsed into something messier.
All those ignored calls.
All those times Mom claimed she was tired.
The scarves.
Natalie had once teased her for wearing scarves indoors.
She pressed a hand against her mouth.
Tyler said, “The bills were bad. Insurance didn’t cover everything.”
“And you used my identity to pay them?”
“At first.”
There it was.
The beginning.
Not greed.
Not gambling.
Fear.
Then compromise.
Then corruption.
“I met Reed through a guy at the sportsbook,” Tyler said. “He offered me money for harmless information. Practice times. Injuries. Travel schedules.”
“And the fake account?”
“He told me if it was in my name, creditors could take it.”
“So you used mine.”
“I thought I’d close it after Mom’s treatment.”
“But you didn’t.”
Tyler looked ashamed.
“No.”
Because by then he had discovered easy money.
The betting began.
His own losses followed.
Then the threats.
One bad decision had become a staircase he kept walking down.
Natalie hated him.
Natalie pitied him.
Both feelings could be true.
Dana zoomed into the medical payments.
“One problem.”
Natalie looked up.
“These payments continued after your mother’s treatment ended.”
Tyler frowned.
“Where did they go?”
“They were redirected three months ago.”
“To who?”
Dana rotated the screen.
A youth skating foundation.
DANIEL CARTER ICE ACCESS FUND
Natalie stood so fast the chair rolled backward.
“What is that?”
Marisol knew.
“I’ve heard of it.”
Natalie stared at her.
“You have?”
“It pays rink fees for low-income children.”
“Why is it named after my father?”
“I assumed you knew.”
Natalie absolutely did not.
The foundation had existed for nine years.
Its board had one director.
Evelyn Carter.
Her mother had spent nearly a decade secretly paying for children to skate in Daniel’s name.
Whatever else she had hidden, this was not the act of a woman motivated purely by protecting Tyler.
Dana opened financial records.
The foundation was legitimate.
Mostly.
Then she found a recurring anonymous donor.
Exactly twenty thousand dollars every year.
For nine consecutive years.
The donor identification had been shielded through a trust.
Dana traced it.
Her expression sharpened.
“What?”
“The donor is connected to Gerald Reed.”
Natalie felt sick again.
Reed had been giving money to a foundation named for her dead father.
Why?
Guilt?
Control?
Payment?
Dana’s phone buzzed.
Security had found Evelyn.
She was sitting alone in the arena chapel used by athletes before major events.
Natalie reached it in less than five minutes.
Her mother sat in the back row holding a small wooden rosary Natalie recognized from childhood.
Evelyn looked older than she had the day before.
“Natalie.”
Natalie remained standing.
“Why did Reed fund Dad’s foundation?”
Her mother closed her eyes.
“So you found that too.”
“Tell me.”
Evelyn wrapped the rosary around her fingers.
“Your father did work for Reed.”
Natalie stopped breathing.
“What kind?”
“He fixed competitions.”
“No.”
“He never touched judges.”
“Then how?”
“Information. Access. Ice schedules. Maintenance delays.”
Every answer cut deeper.
Evelyn’s eyes filled.
“Daniel told himself nobody got hurt.”
Natalie thought of Denver.
The fire alarm.
Her ruined skates.
“Until someone did.”
Her mother nodded.
“Your father tried to get out when he realized they were beginning to target young athletes.”
“Me?”
“No.”
Evelyn looked directly at her.
“Tyler.”
Natalie turned cold.
“Tyler wasn’t an athlete.”
“No.”
Her mother’s voice broke.
“He was their leverage.”
Then she opened her fist.
Inside her palm lay a tiny brass key.
“The night your father died, he gave me this and told me never to let Reed find what it opened.”
Natalie stared.
“Where is it?”
Evelyn looked toward the arena above them.
“Here.”
“What does it open?”
May you like
Her mother whispered:
“The reason Reed needs you to lose tomorrow.”
