Chapter 9 - Rebecca’s Last Call
Richard had spent three years trying not to remember the night Rebecca died.
Now he forced himself to remember everything.
The rain.
The hospital call.
The police officer.
The twisted metal.
The wedding ring returned in a small plastic bag.
Sophie asleep in a carrier beside him while Richard identified his wife’s body.
He had survived by turning grief into work.
Maybe that was why he had been vulnerable to Camille.
Camille arrived when Richard was exhausted from mourning.
She offered warmth.
Structure.
A second chance.
Now he wondered how much of that warmth had been rehearsed.
Detective Briggs reopened Rebecca’s case.
Within one day, an old detail surfaced.
Rebecca made a phone call eleven minutes before her crash.
Not to Richard.
To Samuel Voss.
Richard stared at the report.
“Why would she call Samuel?”
Briggs replied, “We hoped you could tell us.”
“I can’t.”
Nathan read the old phone records.
“Maybe she learned something.”
“About the trust?”
“Maybe.”
Richard remembered Rebecca complaining once that certain charitable accounts were “messy.”
She had been an accountant before Sophie was born.
Richard had laughed and told her his finance team handled it.
The memory now felt like a knife.
“What if she found the theft?”
Briggs nodded.
“That’s one possibility.”
They recovered Rebecca’s old laptop from storage.
Richard had never been able to open it after her death.
Lena Park did.
Most files were ordinary.
Family photos.
Baby schedules.
Shopping lists.
Then she found a password-protected folder.
Inside was a spreadsheet.
Charitable trust transactions.
Highlighted anomalies.
Charles Whitaker.
Samuel Voss.
Repeated transfers.
Rebecca had discovered it.
“She knew,” Richard whispered.
Lena opened another file.
A draft email addressed to Richard.
Richard,
Something is wrong with your father’s trust. Please don’t call Samuel until we talk. I think—
The sentence ended there.
Never sent.
Richard turned away.
His wife had tried to warn him.
And died before she could.
Briggs continued reviewing the crash.
The brakes had failed.
Original report blamed mechanical damage caused by impact.
A new expert disagreed.
The brake line appeared to have been cut before the crash.
Richard felt hollow.
Rebecca had been murdered.
Not proven yet.
But he knew.
He knew in the terrible place grief recognizes truth before courts do.
That evening, Sophie found him sitting alone.
“Daddy sad?”
He pulled her into his lap.
“A little.”
She touched his cheek.
“Because window broke?”
“No.”
“Mommy Camille?”
“No.”
Sophie thought.
“Because Mommy Rebecca?”
Richard looked at her.
They kept photos of Rebecca in Sophie’s room.
He had always wanted his daughter to know her biological mother.
“Yes.”
Sophie hugged him.
Richard closed his eyes.
Rebecca had died trying to protect them.
He would not let her death disappear inside legal files.
At ten, Elliot surrendered to police.
He brought the full ledger.
He also brought something else.
A voice recorder.
Elliot had secretly recorded Samuel during a meeting one year earlier.
The audio was damaged.
But Lena recovered part of it.
Samuel’s voice:
“Rebecca almost destroyed everything.”
Elliot:
“What does that mean?”
Samuel:
“It means your brother’s wives have always been more dangerous than he realizes.”
Richard nearly shattered the recorder.
Plural.
Wives.
Rebecca.
Camille.
One murdered.
One recruited.
Samuel had viewed the women around Richard as pieces.
But Camille had eventually become more ambitious than Samuel expected.
Victor confirmed that.
According to Victor, Camille originally agreed to help create evidence of Richard’s incapacity.
But she discovered how much Sophie would inherit.
Then Camille changed the plan.
“She wanted sole control,” Victor told police.
“How?” Briggs asked.
“Marriage, guardianship, death.”
“Whose death?”
Victor smiled without humor.
“Whoever became inconvenient.”
Even Samuel.
Even Victor.
Camille was not merely being used.
She intended to become the last person standing.
The following morning, a warrant was issued for Camille on charges related to child abuse, conspiracy, forgery, and financial crimes.
Her photograph appeared across national news.
Richard hated that Sophie’s life had become public.
He shut off every television.
But the media gathered outside Hale headquarters anyway.
Share prices fell.
Board members demanded statements.
Investors panicked.
Richard ignored them.
For the first time in his adult life, his company came second.
Then third.
Then somewhere much further down.
Sophie came first.
That decision changed him.
Three days later, police found Camille’s abandoned car.
Inside was blood.
Not much.
But enough.
Testing confirmed it belonged to Samuel Voss.
Richard stared at Briggs.
“Camille hurt Samuel?”
“Possibly.”
“Or killed him?”
“We don’t know.”
They searched nearby woods.
Nothing.
Then they found security footage from a gas station twelve miles away.
Camille entered alone.
Baseball cap.
Sweatshirt.
No black evening gowns.
No diamonds.
No elegant cruelty.
She looked terrified.
She bought water, cash cards, and a prepaid phone.
Before leaving, she glanced repeatedly toward the road.
Someone was chasing her.
Richard watched the footage twice.
“Who is she running from?”
Briggs shook her head.
“Maybe Samuel.”
“His blood was in her car.”
“Maybe Kreel.”
“Maybe Victor’s people.”
“Maybe.”
Richard leaned closer to the screen.
Camille reached the door.
Then stopped.
She turned toward the security camera.
For three seconds, she stared directly into it.
Then she lifted one hand.
Three fingers.
Closed fist.
Two fingers.
Lena frowned.
“What is she doing?”
Richard felt a memory surface.
Camille once told him her father had taught her simple emergency hand signals as a child.
Three.
Zero.
Two.
A number.
Richard searched Camille’s known records.
Hotel rooms.
Addresses.
Bank boxes.
Then Nathan found it.
Storage unit 302.
Registered under Bright Shore Consulting.
Police opened it that night.
Inside were suitcases.
Cash.
Fake passports.
And a child-size pink backpack.
Richard’s stomach dropped.
Inside the backpack was Sophie’s spare birth certificate.
A passport application with a photo of Sophie.
And an airline itinerary.
Two passengers.
Camille Hale.
Sophie Hale.
Destination:
Buenos Aires.
Date of departure:
Five days earlier.
Richard stared at the paper.
Camille had planned to take his daughter out of the country.
But something had stopped her.
In the back of the storage unit, investigators found one final box.
Marked:
REBECCA.
Inside was a memory card.
Lena played the only video.
Rebecca appeared on screen.
Alive.
Nervous.
Recorded just hours before her death.
“If Richard is watching this,” she said, “then something happened to me.”
Richard stopped breathing.
Rebecca continued.
“Samuel Voss is stealing from the Hale trust.”
She looked over her shoulder.
“And I think someone inside our own family is helping him.”
May you like
Then she spoke the name Richard never expected to hear.
“Elliot.”
