Chapter 14 - MY FATHER WAS SUPPOSED TO DIE
The call lasted ninety-seven seconds.
Luis refused to reveal his location.
He sounded sick.
Afraid.
And absolutely certain.
“The contract was for Gabriel Escalante.”
I put him on speaker.
My father stood motionless.
“Who hired you?”
“I never met them.”
“Who paid you?”
“A man named Victor.”
Daniel and I looked at each other.
Victor Hale.
Again.
Luis coughed violently.
“I was told Gabriel would be driving.”
“He always drove that road home after foundation meetings.”
“But that night Elena took the car.”
My father closed his eyes.
My mother had died because someone thought he would be behind the wheel.
“Why did Margaret pay you?”
I asked.
Luis went silent.
Then he answered.
“Because she discovered what happened.”
“She offered me money to disappear.”
“Why?”
“Because she wanted Gabriel to think Charles was responsible.”
Charles stared at Margaret through the glass partition where investigators were questioning her.
His face was unreadable.
Luis continued.
“She hated both families.”
“She thought if Gabriel blamed Charles, the Escalantes and Whitmores would destroy each other.”
My father whispered.
“And I nearly did.”
The call crackled.
I asked the question that mattered.
“Who was Victor working for?”
Luis took a long breath.
“I don’t know.”
“But he wasn’t working for Margaret.”
The line disconnected.
Daniel immediately began tracing.
“No location yet.”
My father sat down heavily.
For fourteen years, grief had been built on the wrong assumption.
Margaret had concealed evidence.
Charles had disappeared.
Victor had moved millions.
But someone else had wanted my father dead.
Andrew looked at me.
“We find Victor.”
I stared at him.
“There is no ‘we.’”
“This involves my family too.”
“Your family helped bury it.”
“And I’m helping uncover it.”
I stepped closer.
“You don’t get to reinvent yourself because consequences arrived.”
His face hardened.
“I know what I did.”
“Do you?”
“I married you for access.”
The honesty stunned me.
Andrew continued.
“At first.”
My jaw tightened.
He looked away.
“I knew who you were.”
“My mother told me.”
“She pushed me toward you.”
“I thought if I got close enough, I could repair Whitmore permanently.”
He looked back at me.
“But somewhere along the way, it stopped being an act.”
I laughed softly.
“You expect me to believe that?”
“No.”
“Good.”
“But I need to say it.”
“You said enough when you hit me.”
He flinched.
I walked away.
Daniel approached.
“We traced Victor Hale.”
“Monaco?”
“Not anymore.”
He turned the screen.
Victor had entered the United States three days earlier.
Through Miami.
Then disappeared.
But his passport had been scanned again forty minutes ago.
At a private terminal outside the city.
He was here.
My father looked toward security.
“Lock down the building.”
Charles suddenly shouted from the adjacent room.
“No.”
We turned.
He pushed through the door.
“If Victor came here, he doesn’t want money.”
“What does he want?”
I asked.
Charles stared at the metal case containing my mother’s files.
“That.”
Before anyone moved, the lights went out.
The entire floor fell into darkness.
Emergency systems failed.
Security radios became static.
Then three sharp sounds came from the hallway.
Not gunshots.
Explosive door charges.
Someone had breached the private floor.
May you like
Victor Hale had finally come for my mother’s secret.
And this time, he wasn’t sending someone else.
