Chapter 14 - Uncle David
Rachel let the phone ring three times before answering.
"Hi, sweetheart," David said warmly. "I heard someone broke into Harold's house. Are you okay?"
Rachel looked at Bell.
He nodded for her to keep talking.
"How did you hear that?"
A pause.
"Small circle. Harold has friends."
"Where are you?"
"Home. Why?"
Rachel looked at the letter in her hand.
"Dad left me a message about you."
Silence.
Then David's voice changed.
Not much.
Just enough.
"What kind of message?"
"He said you helped Marcus."
The line went dead.
Bell immediately dispatched officers.
They reached David's house twenty minutes later.
His car was gone.
So was his passport.
In the garage, investigators found boxes of old Morgan Clinical Systems files that should have been destroyed years earlier.
One contained photocopies of Rachel's Social Security card, college records, and first passport application.
Daniel stared at the stack.
"That's how they opened accounts in your name."
Rachel felt sick.
David had been at every birthday when she was young. He had taught her to drive. He had carried her father's casket.
Vanessa, brought in under police supervision to identify documents, saw David's photograph and swore.
"I knew him as D.M. Marcus never gave me his real name."
Rachel turned. "You met him?"
"Twice. He sold Marcus access to identity files."
"And you knew that?"
Vanessa looked ashamed. "I knew the files were stolen. I didn't know they came from your family."
Rachel laughed sharply. "Does that make you feel better?"
"No."
For once, Vanessa did not fight back.
Bell found a GPS ping from David's car near the interstate.
Then another near a private airfield.
Daniel said, "He's running."
Melissa opened the hard drive from Thomas's sealed package.
It was encrypted.
A sticky note on the back contained a clue.
The password is the thing David always wanted and never earned.
Rachel stared at it.
Daniel said, "Money?"
"No."
She remembered her father and David arguing when she was sixteen.
Her father had said, You want the title without the work.
Rachel typed one word.
PRESIDENT.
The drive unlocked.
A folder appeared labeled FINAL PROOF.
Inside was a recorded video call.
David's face filled the screen.
May you like
He was speaking to Marcus.
And the date stamp was yesterday.
