CHAPTER 5 THE MAN WHO VANISHED
My father asked everyone to leave except me.
I refused.
“Andrew stays.”
Andrew looked surprised.
I did not forgive him.
But if his family was tied to my father’s secret, he needed to hear it.
Rafael sat heavily.
“Your mother did not die in an accident.”
The room seemed to tilt.
I had been ten when her car went off a mountain road.
There had been no witnesses.
No surviving driver.
Only twisted metal and fire.
“What are you saying?”
“She discovered money laundering inside one of our European subsidiaries,” he said.
“The network was connected to the Whitmore family.”
Andrew stared at him.
“My father?”
“Yes.”
Andrew’s father, Charles Whitmore, had supposedly died when Andrew was sixteen.
At least, that was what Margaret always claimed.
Rafael opened an old envelope.
Inside was a photograph.
My mother stood beside Charles Whitmore outside a courthouse.
On the back, in her handwriting, were the words:
If anything happens to me, Margaret knows why.
My hands began to tremble.
“You had this?”
“I found it after the accident.”
“And you never told me?”
“I tried to protect you.”
“By letting me marry into their family?”
“I did not know Andrew was Charles’s son until after your engagement.”
Andrew frowned.
“How could you not know?”
“Because Charles Whitmore was not your father’s real name.”
Rafael placed another document on the table.
A passport.
The photograph was Andrew’s father.
But the name was different.
Gabriel Cole.
Brenda’s last name.
Andrew stared at it.
“No.”
Rafael continued.
“Charles had another family.”
Andrew looked toward the door where Brenda had been taken.
My stomach tightened.
“You mean Brenda…”
“No,” Rafael said quickly.
“She is not his daughter.”
Andrew exhaled.
“But she is connected.”
“How?” I asked.
Before my father could answer, the building alarm sounded.
Red lights flashed.
Evelyn rushed into the room.
“Someone accessed the evidence vault.”
We ran into the corridor.
Smoke poured from the records wing.
Employees evacuated down the stairs.
Security found the vault door open.
Inside, several boxes burned.
Including the original files on my mother’s death.
Andrew stood beside me.
His face was pale.
Then his phone rang.
Unknown number.
He answered.
A distorted voice said one sentence.
“Your wife should have stayed on her knees.”
The call ended.
Andrew looked at me.
For the first time, there was no arrogance in his face.
Only fear.
“They’re coming for you.”
I looked toward the smoke.
May you like
“No.”
“They’ve been waiting for me to remember who I am.”
