Chapter 7 - My Mother's Name
I stared at the screen until the letters blurred.
Laura Hart.
My mother died in a car accident when I was ten.
I remembered rain on the funeral home windows. Grandma Margaret’s hand around mine. A closed casket because the crash had been bad.
No body I was allowed to see.
No goodbye.
“Someone is using her identity,” Daniel said.
Rebecca looked less certain.
I turned on her. “You know something.”
She exhaled slowly. “I know your grandmother kept a sealed file marked Laura.”
“And you did not think to mention that?”
“The instructions said not to open it unless ownership of Kingsley House was challenged.”
“Well,” I said, “consider it challenged.”
The file was in Rebecca’s office downtown.
We drove there with Marcus following.
Inside a private conference room, Rebecca retrieved a small fireproof box from a safe.
The key had been taped beneath the lid of my grandmother’s old Bible.
I recognized the Bible immediately.
I had seen it on her kitchen table my entire childhood.
Inside the box was a passport.
My mother’s passport.
Issued three years after she supposedly died.
I stopped breathing.
Daniel whispered, “Jesus.”
There was also a photograph.
My mother stood outside a small cottage beside Grandma Margaret. The date printed on the back was thirteen years after the funeral.
I sat down hard.
“She was alive.”
Rebecca handed me a letter.
Elena, if you are reading this, then Charles Whitmore has finally forced the truth into daylight.
My hands shook so badly Daniel reached for me.
I moved away.
I kept reading.
Your mother survived the crash. The accident was not an accident. I hid her because the person who tried to kill her had access to money, police, and the Whitmore company.
The room tilted.
I read the next line twice.
Laura discovered that company funds were being used to pay bribes through offshore accounts. She intended to expose it. Someone stopped her.
I looked at Rebecca.
“Who?”
She shook her head. “The letter does not say.”
Marcus took the camera account information and compared it with the passport.
Then his expression changed.
“The server was accessed yesterday from inside Illinois.”
My heart slammed against my ribs.
“Yesterday?”
He nodded.
“Whoever is using your mother’s identity is alive. And they logged in from less than twenty miles away.”
My phone rang.
Unknown number.
I answered.
A woman whispered one sentence.
May you like
“Elena, don’t trust Daniel.”
Then the line went dead.
