Chapter 3 - THE MAN BEHIND THE COMPANY
Three days later, Claire arrived at the hospital before breakfast.
She didn't bring coffee.
She didn't bring the usual stack of papers.
She brought a single photograph.
She placed it face down on my tray.
"I need you to prepare yourself."
I looked at her.
"For what?"
"Because the license plate led somewhere unexpected."
I turned the photograph over.
It showed a dark SUV parked outside a commercial building.
The building looked familiar.
I had seen it before.
But I couldn't place it immediately.
Claire noticed my expression.
"Recognize it?"
"Not yet."
"Look at the sign."
I leaned closer.
The photograph had been taken at night, but the company name was visible above the entrance.
Higgins Security Solutions.
My heart skipped.
"Higgins?"
Claire nodded.
"Walter Higgins."
The man who found me.
I stared at the photograph.
"You're telling me Walter drove the SUV?"
"No."
"Then why is his company involved?"
"Because the SUV was registered to his company."
I felt a strange mixture of fear and confusion.
"Walter saved me."
"I know."
"He called the ambulance."
"I know."
"He gave police the license plate."
"I know."
"Then why would his company vehicle be involved?"
Claire sat down.
"We don't know."
I looked at the photograph again.
There was something about it that bothered me.
Not because Walter seemed suspicious.
Because I remembered his face.
The moment he found me, he had looked terrified.
Not guilty.
Terrified.
He had kept his distance because he didn't want to frighten me.
He had given me his jacket.
He had stayed until the ambulance arrived.
"Can I speak to him?"
"Detective Miller already did."
"What did he say?"
"He said the SUV had been stolen from his company's lot two nights earlier."
I looked at Claire.
"Then why wasn't it reported?"
"It was."
"When?"
"That same night."
"By whom?"
"Walter."
My confusion deepened.
"Then what does he have to do with my parents?"
"Maybe nothing."
Claire placed another document on the tray.
"That's what we're trying to determine."
Later that morning, Detective Miller visited.
She told me Walter had been cooperative.
His company had six vehicles.
One had disappeared temporarily from a secured lot.
He reported it missing.
Then it was returned the next morning.
He assumed an employee had taken it without permission.
But when police examined the vehicle, they found something.
A small trace of blood.
Not enough to identify anyone immediately.
But enough to suggest the vehicle had been inside the same area where I was attacked.
"Whose blood?" I asked.
"Yours."
My stomach dropped.
"So they used his vehicle to move me."
"That's one possibility."
"Can you prove it?"
"Not yet."
Detective Miller opened another file.
"We also found security footage."
My heart began pounding.
"From where?"
"A gas station three blocks from your parents' house."
She showed me a still photograph.
The image was blurry.
But the SUV was visible.
It was leaving a side street.
The timestamp was 11:47 p.m.
I remembered nothing after the beating.
"What happened at 11:47?"
"We believe that was approximately when you were transported."
She showed me another image.
The same SUV.
This time near the supermarket.
12:19 a.m.
Twenty minutes later, Walter found me.
I stared at the photographs.
Then I noticed something.
The driver's door.
There was a small reflection in the window.
A person.
Tall.
Broad shoulders.
Dark coat.
My father was tall.
But thousands of men were tall.
"Can you enhance it?"
"Already tried."
"Anything?"
Detective Miller hesitated.
"There may be a second person."
She showed me the image.
A smaller figure appeared in the passenger seat.
My mother.
I knew it immediately.
I didn't know how.
I just did.
"The passenger."
Detective Miller watched me carefully.
"You think it's your mother?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
"Because of the way she sits."
It sounded ridiculous.
But I had spent thirty-four years watching my mother sit in cars.
Her posture.
Her shoulders.
The way she held her purse.
The shape of her hair.
I knew her.
Detective Miller didn't argue.
"We're waiting for the forensic comparison."
I nodded.
Then she gave me the information that changed everything.
"Your mother's phone was active during the time you disappeared."
"Where?"
"Near the supermarket."
I closed my eyes.
She had been there.
The recording hadn't been enough.
The phone location might be.
"Did my father have his phone?"
"Yes."
"Where was it?"
"At your parents' house."
I opened my eyes.
"Then who drove the SUV?"
"We don't know."
That question followed me for the rest of the day.
But that evening, Claire returned with another discovery.
She placed an email printout on my bed.
It was between my mother and someone named Elliot Vance.
I didn't recognize the name.
"What is this?"
"Financial consultant."
"To whom?"
"Your father."
I read the email.
My mother had written:
She knows about the trust. We need to move the remaining assets before she talks to anyone.
The reply came two minutes later.
Then make sure she doesn't get access to the original documents.
My blood ran cold.
"Who is Elliot Vance?"
Claire handed me another page.
His name appeared on several trust documents.
He had advised my father for years.
He also appeared as a director on two of the shell companies receiving trust money.
"He was helping them."
"Possibly."
I read another email.
This one was worse.
My mother wrote:
Douglas is losing control. If Savannah keeps pushing, she will expose everything.
Elliot replied:
Then the problem has to be contained before the audit.
I stared at the words.
"Contained?"
Claire nodded.
"That's why we're taking this seriously."
I couldn't stop thinking about that word.
Contained.
Not explained.
Not resolved.
Contained.
As if I were a problem.
As if my existence were an inconvenience.
As if the person they needed to eliminate wasn't a daughter.
But an obstacle.
That night, I couldn't sleep.
At 2:13 a.m., my hospital room phone rang.
I picked it up.
"Hello?"
There was silence.
Then a man's voice.
"You should have left the trust alone."
My entire body went cold.
"Who is this?"
"You're making this worse."
"Who are you?"
The caller hung up.
I immediately pressed the nurse call button.
Within minutes, hospital security arrived.
Detective Miller was contacted.
Claire arrived before sunrise.
I told her everything.
She didn't panic.
She simply opened the blue folder.
Then she pulled out one document.
"Look at this."
It was a company registration.
Elliot Vance wasn't merely my father's financial consultant.
He was the registered owner of one of the companies receiving money from the trust.
But that wasn't the strangest part.
The company's registered address was the same address as Northstar Consulting.
My mother's company.
I looked at Claire.
"They were working together."
"That's what it appears to show."
"And the money?"
"Follow it."
I did.
The money moved from the trust.
To my father's company.
Then to Elliot's company.
Then to Northstar.
And finally into an account belonging to someone named Daniel Croft.
I stared at the name.
"Who is Daniel Croft?"
Claire's face became unusually serious.
"Your father's younger brother."
I felt my heart stop.
"My uncle?"
"Yes."
I had not seen Daniel in fifteen years.
He had supposedly moved to Arizona after a family argument.
My parents always told me he had abandoned the family.
But the documents showed something else.
He had been receiving money.
A lot of it.
And the transfers began shortly after my grandfather died.
I remembered my grandfather's funeral.
Daniel had stood at the back.
He hadn't spoken to anyone.
My father had told everyone Daniel was bitter because he had been excluded from the trust.
But perhaps that wasn't true.
Perhaps he had received something after all.
Claire closed the folder.
"We need to find him."
I looked at her.
"Why?"
"Because if your uncle is part of this, he may know where the money went."
"And if he isn't?"
"Then he may be the person your parents were trying to keep away from you."
That afternoon, Detective Miller found an address for Daniel.
A small house outside Phoenix.
He had lived there for eleven years.
No criminal record.
No business complaints.
No known connection to my father.
But when Detective Miller called him, Daniel asked one question.
"Is Savannah alive?"
I stared at Claire.
Then Detective Miller's phone.
"Why would he ask that?"
Detective Miller looked at me.
"I asked him."
"And?"
"He said your father told him you died."
The room went silent.
My parents had told my uncle I was dead.
And suddenly the entire case became bigger than money.
Because Daniel knew something.
May you like
Something my parents had spent fifteen years hiding.
And whatever it was, they had been willing to let him believe his niece was dead just to keep him silent.
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