Chapter 7 - WHAT HAPPENED TO THEIR FATHER
Ryan sat down slowly.
Their father, Thomas Whitmore, had died twelve years earlier.
Officially, it had been a heart attack.
Ryan had been twenty-three.
Claire had been nineteen.
Evelyn had taken control of the family before the funeral flowers wilted.
“What are you saying?”
Claire placed an old notebook on the table.
“I’m not saying she killed him.”
Maya sat beside Oliver on the couch.
“Then what are you saying?”
“I’m saying Dad wanted to remove her from the trust.”
Ryan stared.
“That never happened.”
“Because he died three days before the meeting.”
Ryan shook his head.
“You think that proves something?”
“No.”
Claire’s expression hardened.
“But this might.”
She opened the notebook.
Thomas Whitmore’s handwriting filled the pages.
Meetings.
Financial concerns.
Notes about Evelyn interfering with company accounts.
One sentence had been underlined twice.
Evelyn must never control shares through the grandchildren.
Ryan read it again.
Then again.
His stomach turned.
Claire continued.
“I found this after the funeral. When Mom discovered I had it, she started telling everyone I was having a breakdown.”
Ryan remembered.
Evelyn crying at dinner.
Evelyn saying Claire was drinking.
Evelyn saying Claire had become paranoid.
Ryan had believed her.
“You disappeared,” he said.
“I didn’t disappear.”
Claire’s eyes flashed.
“She cut me off.”
Ryan frowned.
“She said you refused contact.”
“She changed my number on the family accounts. Blocked my emails. Told security I wasn’t allowed onto company property.”
Ryan felt sick.
“I called you.”
“Three times.”
“I called dozens of times.”
Claire shook her head.
“I never got them.”
Maya whispered, “She controlled both sides.”
Claire nodded.
“She always does.”
Ryan looked at his sister.
“Why didn’t you come back?”
“Because when I tried, she threatened to release psychiatric reports saying I was suicidal.”
Ryan stared.
“Were you?”
“I was nineteen, grieving my father, and terrified of my mother.”
Claire’s voice cracked.
“I saw a therapist. That became her weapon.”
Ryan sat in stunned silence.
Claire slid another paper toward him.
A bank statement.
A transfer from an account controlled by Evelyn.
Recipient:
GRAHAM PRICE.
Date:
Twelve years earlier.
Ryan’s pulse quickened.
“He helped her then too.”
Claire nodded.
“Same lawyer.”
Maya looked at Ryan.
“This is bigger than us.”
Ryan’s phone rang.
Detective Ortiz.
He answered immediately.
“We found something in the nursery camera system,” she said.
“What?”
“The camera uploaded to a cloud account before local clips were deleted.”
Ryan glanced at Claire.
“There are deleted clips?”
“Eleven minutes.”
“Can you recover them?”
“We did.”
Ryan stood.
“And?”
Ortiz paused.
“The footage begins before your mother entered the nursery.”
Ryan frowned.
“Who was there?”
“A man.”
“What man?”
Ortiz answered.
“Your family’s security chief.”
Ryan knew him.
Calvin Ross had worked for Evelyn for eighteen years.
Ortiz continued.
“He hid the camera.”
Ryan’s expression darkened.
“Where is Ross now?”
Another pause.
“We don’t know.”
Then Maya’s phone buzzed.
Unknown sender.
One sentence.
YOU SHOULD HAVE SIGNED THE PAPERS.
Attached beneath it was a photograph.
Taken through the hotel window.
A photograph of Maya holding Oliver.
May you like
Someone was watching them.
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