Chapter 7 - THE SIGNATURE THAT WASN'T MINE
We ran outside.
The car disappeared around the corner.
I checked my coat.
No watch.
Daniel cursed.
“Someone took it.”
Rebecca stood beside us.
“They have everything.”
“No,” I said.
She looked at me.
“They have the watch.”
I held up the memory card.
“We still have this.”
Daniel nodded.
“More importantly, they don't know what we know.”
We returned to the rehabilitation center.
Dad was asleep.
A nurse met us at the door.
“Your mother came twenty minutes ago.”
My stomach dropped.
“What did she want?”
“She said she was taking him to a specialist.”
“Which specialist?”
The nurse checked the chart.
“There wasn't one listed.”
Daniel looked at me.
We had been too late.
But then the nurse said something else.
“She left the watch.”
I froze.
“Which watch?”
“Your father's.”
I took it.
The face was cracked.
But the memory compartment was still intact.
I opened it.
Empty.
Rebecca looked at me.
“Then why leave it?”
I examined the back.
There was a new scratch.
A symbol.
Three tiny lines.
I recognized it from the ledger.
A company code.
“Mom left us a message.”
Daniel looked closer.
“What does it mean?”
I turned the watch over.
The symbol corresponded to the seventh company.
The one I hadn't been able to trace.
Its address was the old veterans' clinic.
The land.
My father's land.
We drove there.
The clinic had been closed for years.
Dust covered the windows.
Inside, however, someone had recently been working.
Fresh footprints.
New electrical cables.
A desk.
A printer.
Boxes of financial records.
Mom's operation had been running from there.
We found the seven company files.
But there was something else.
A wall covered with photographs.
Dad.
Me.
Chloe.
Mom.
My military records.
Hospital photographs.
Even pictures from the night I returned from deployment.
They had been watching me for years.
Then I saw a photograph that stopped me cold.
My mother standing beside a younger version of herself.
She was maybe twenty.
Beside her was a little girl.
Chloe.
And beside Chloe was another child.
A boy.
I stared.
“Who is that?”
Rebecca looked at the photograph.
Her face changed.
“That is Daniel.”
Daniel stepped closer.
“No.”
He stared at the photograph.
“I don't have a brother.”
Rebecca shook her head.
“Not Daniel.”
She pointed to the boy.
“That's your mother’s son.”
I felt confused.
“My mother had another child?”
“Before you.”
Daniel looked at Rebecca.
“What are you saying?”
“Your mother had a child before she married your father.”
The boy had been adopted.
His name was Michael.
He had disappeared from the family records decades ago.
But why?
We searched the files.
Michael had become an accountant.
Then a financial investigator.
Then he had vanished.
I found his photograph beside one of the seven companies.
His signature appeared on several original documents.
I looked at Rebecca.
“Michael built the network.”
She nodded.
“He was the one who taught your mother how to hide money.”
“But he's gone.”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
Rebecca looked toward the wall.
“He died four years ago.”
My stomach tightened.
“Then who continued his work?”
She didn't answer.
I already knew.
Mom.
But there was another name on the files.
C. Bennett.
Chloe.
I turned toward my sister.
She had been standing silently near the door.
Her face was pale.
“I didn't know,” she whispered.
I believed her.
She hadn't built the network.
She had been used to move money.
But then we found something worse.
A document dated two months before the party.
It was an insurance policy.
On me.
The beneficiary was Mom.
My life had been assigned a monetary value.
I stared at the page.
Daniel gently took it from me.
“This is enough.”
“No.”
I looked around.
“Not yet.”
I wanted my mother to face everything.
Not just financial fraud.
Not just theft.
I wanted the truth about Dad.
We found him that evening at a private clinic.
Mom had not harmed him.
She had taken him there.
But she had left him without his medication.
The doctors stabilized him.
When I entered his room, he looked exhausted.
“I was afraid she'd hurt you.”
“She did.”
His eyes filled.
“I failed you.”
“No.”
I sat beside him.
“You tried to protect us.”
He shook his head.
“I protected the wrong person.”
I took his hand.
“Dad, where did Mom go?”
He whispered:
“The clinic.”
“What clinic?”
“The old veterans' clinic.”
I nodded.
“We found it.”
Dad closed his eyes.
“She'll be there.”
“Why?”
“Because she believes the land is the only thing that can save her.”
I looked at him.
“Save her from what?”
He opened his eyes.
“Rebecca.”
Rebecca stood in the doorway.
Dad looked at her.
“You're Evelyn Sloan's daughter.”
Rebecca nodded.
“I know.”
Dad's face softened.
“I was sorry about your mother.”
“I know.”
For a moment, the room was silent.
Then Rebecca said:
“Your wife didn't steal the money because she hated you.”
Dad looked confused.
“She stole it because she was terrified of losing everything.”
I felt anger rise.
“That's not an excuse.”
“No,” Rebecca said.
“It isn't.”
Then she turned toward me.
“But she isn't the only person responsible.”
She handed me a photograph.
It showed Mom entering the old clinic that morning.
Behind her was the man from Rutherford.
And in his hand was the watch.
The caption on the back read:
THE FINAL TRANSFER.
Daniel looked at me.
“We need to stop it.”
I stood.
Dad reached for my hand.
“Shayla.”
I turned.
“Bring your sister.”
“Why?”
Dad's voice was weak.
“Because your mother will listen to Chloe.”
Chloe stepped forward.
May you like
“Then I'll go.”
And for the first time in years, my sister stood beside me instead of behind our mother.
