PART 3 — THE DEAD WOMAN’S SECRET
“Mrs. Carter, who sent that message?”
Detective Harris repeated his question, but this time his voice was sharper.
I looked at my phone, then at the two men sitting across from me.
“Just a friend,” I answered.
Harris held my gaze.
“Your friend Rebecca?”
My stomach dropped.
I hadn’t mentioned her name.
Not once.
“How do you know Rebecca’s name?” I asked.
For the first time, Harris looked uncomfortable.
Officer Morales shifted in his chair.
“She’s connected to your husband’s investigation,” Harris replied.
“Then why didn’t you tell me that?”
He didn’t answer.
Instead, he reached across the table.
“Mrs. Carter, I’m going to need to see your phone.”
I slowly picked it up.
“Do you have a warrant?”
His expression hardened.
“Are you refusing to cooperate?”
“I’m asking a question, Detective.”
The room went silent.
Finally, Harris stood.
“We may need to continue this conversation at the station.”
“Then you know where to find me.”
He stared at me for several seconds before turning toward the door.
Morales followed, but just before leaving, he paused.
“Mrs. Carter, be careful who you trust.”
Then they were gone.
I watched their police car disappear down the street.
Only then did I allow myself to breathe.
I locked the door, pulled the curtains, and rushed upstairs to Daniel’s home office.
For fifteen years, that room had been his private kingdom.
He kept the door locked whenever he traveled.
He told me it contained confidential client information.
But last night, when the locksmith changed every lock, I’d insisted on replacing that one too.
Now I had the key.
I entered the office and walked directly toward the enormous oak bookshelf.
I pulled several books from the middle shelf.
Nothing.
Then I noticed a tiny scratch near the wooden molding.
I pressed against it.
Click.
The bookshelf shifted.
Behind it was a small steel safe.
My heart started pounding.
I tried Daniel’s birthday.
Wrong.
Our anniversary.
Wrong.
Then something made me stop.
My mother’s birthday.
June 14.
I entered 0614.
The safe opened.
Inside were three thick envelopes, a flash drive, and a photograph.
I reached for the photograph first.
And nearly dropped it.
It showed my mother sitting at a restaurant table with Daniel.
The date printed on the back was September 18.
Four years ago.
Three weeks after my mother’s funeral.
I stared at the picture.
My mother was supposed to be dead.
I’d attended her funeral.
I’d stood beside her coffin.
I’d watched them lower it into the ground.
Yet there she was, smiling at my husband weeks later.
My hands trembled as I opened the first envelope.
Inside was a copy of a death certificate.
My mother’s name.
My mother’s date of birth.
But the photograph attached to the supporting identification documents wasn’t hers.
It belonged to a woman I’d never seen before.
The second envelope contained bank statements.
Millions of dollars had moved through accounts connected to my mother’s identity.
The third held something much worse.
A signed agreement between Daniel Carter and a man named Richard Harris.
I froze.
Harris.
The detective who had just been sitting in my kitchen.
I read the agreement twice.
It outlined a payment of $250,000 in exchange for protecting certain financial transactions from investigation.
At the bottom was Richard Harris’s signature.
And beside it was Daniel’s.
“Oh, Daniel,” I whispered. “What have you done?”
My phone suddenly rang.
Unknown number.
I answered without thinking.
“Hello?”
A woman spoke, her voice weak and trembling.
“Please don’t hang up.”
“Rebecca?”
“Yes.”
I gripped the edge of the desk.
“They told me you were unconscious in a hospital.”
“I was. Daniel drugged my drink. I woke up two hours ago.”
“Where is he?”
“I don’t know. But listen carefully. You need to leave that house.”
“Rebecca, I found the safe.”
She stopped breathing for a moment.
“You opened it?”
“Yes. And there’s a photograph of my mother taken after her funeral.”
Rebecca began crying.
“I’m so sorry.”
“Sorry for what?”
“Because I knew.”
My heart seemed to stop.
“You knew my mother was alive?”
“Daniel told me six months ago. I didn’t believe him until I found the documents.”
I sank into his leather chair.
“Then tell me where she is.”
Rebecca hesitated.
“Your mother didn’t die four years ago. She disappeared because she discovered Daniel was stealing money from the company she secretly owned.”
I closed my eyes.
“My mother owned a company?”
“Not just any company. The consulting firm Daniel claims he built himself.”
Everything suddenly made sense.
The unexplained wealth.
The secret accounts.
Daniel’s refusal to let me examine his finances.
But one question burned louder than the others.
“Why would my mother abandon me?”
Rebecca’s answer came through tears.
“Because Daniel threatened to hurt you if she ever contacted you again.”
Before I could respond, I heard a loud crash on Rebecca’s end.
Then a man’s voice.
“Give me the phone.”
“Rebecca?”
“RUN!” she screamed.
The call disconnected.
I stood there shaking.
Then I heard something downstairs.
A metallic click.
The sound of a lock turning.
Someone was opening my front door.
But that was impossible.
The locksmith had given me the only set of keys.
I quietly stepped into the hallway.
A man’s voice floated up from the foyer.
“Claire?”
Daniel.
My husband.
The man who was supposed to be missing in Cancun.
“I know you’re here, sweetheart.”
His footsteps moved across the hardwood floor.
“I think we need to talk.”
I backed toward the bedroom, clutching the flash drive.
Then Daniel said something that stopped me cold.
“Your mother wants to see you.”
I froze.
From downstairs came another voice.
A woman’s voice.
Soft.
Familiar.
“Claire, darling?”
Tears filled my eyes.
I knew that voice.
I had spent four years wishing I could hear it one more time.
“Mom?” I whispered.
But before I could take another step, my phone vibrated.
A new message appeared from an unfamiliar number.
“CLAIRE, THAT WOMAN IS NOT YOUR MOTHER. DO NOT GO DOWNSTAIRS. I’M YOUR REAL MOTHER, AND I’M OUTSIDE YOUR HOUSE RIGHT NOW.”
I rushed to the bedroom window.
A gray sedan was parked across the street.
Inside sat an elderly woman holding a phone.
She slowly raised her face toward my window.
My knees nearly gave out.
It was my mother.
Older.
Thinner.
But unmistakably her.
And standing beside her car was Officer Morales.
He looked straight up at me.
Then pointed urgently toward the back of the house.
Downstairs, Daniel called my name again.
This time, he wasn’t pretending to be kind.
“Claire! Come down here. NOW!”
And then I heard the unmistakable sound of a gun being loaded……
TO BE CONTINUED IN PART 4…
