Chapter 11 - The Chairman’s Car
They found Harold trying to leave through the side entrance.
Daniel’s security team stopped him at the gate and brought him back into the library.
Ethan walked in holding Rachel’s phone.
Harold saw it and closed his eyes.
“You knew,” Ethan said.
“I knew there was a phone. I didn’t know where.”
“You drove Rachel’s car the night she died.”
Harold looked toward the fireplace.
“Yes.”
Ethan crossed the room so quickly Daniel stepped between them.
“Why?”
Harold’s voice cracked. “Because she asked me to.”
Ethan stared.
“She believed someone was following her,” Harold continued. “She wanted whoever it was to think she had left in her own car. I drove it out of the garage. She left in another vehicle.”
“The black SUV.”
“Yes.”
“What happened next?”
“I drove her car to a hotel parking structure and left it. Someone stole it later. The police never told me that part because…”
“Because you never told police you had driven it.”
Harold looked ashamed. “Rachel made me promise.”
Ethan slammed the phone onto the desk. “She died.”
“I know.”
“Her car went off a highway.”
“I know.”
“And you said nothing for eleven months?”
Harold’s eyes filled. “I was afraid.”
“Of Claire?”
Harold looked at her through the open library doors.
“No.”
Claire stiffened.
Ethan caught it.
“Then who?”
Harold took a long breath. “Your brother.”
Ethan felt the word like a blow.
“My brother lives in California.”
“Not that brother.”
Silence.
Ethan stared at him. “I only have one brother.”
Harold shook his head slowly.
“Richard Cole had another son.”
Ethan laughed because the statement was impossible.
Harold did not.
“He was born before your parents married. Your father paid the mother to disappear. Years later, that son came back under a different name and started working through vendors connected to the foundation.”
Ethan’s mouth went dry.
“What name?”
Harold opened his phone and showed Ethan a photograph.
Ethan knew the man.
Everyone in the house knew him.
May you like
Because he had been standing ten feet from Sophie all evening.
Daniel Ruiz.
