Chapter 5 - Nora's Son.
Ethan thought he had misunderstood.
“Your son?”
Nora nodded.
“Daniel disappeared twelve years ago.”
Sophie moved closer to her.
Nora took the child’s hand.
“He was twenty-eight.”
“What happened?”
“He worked for Vale Capital.”
Ethan looked again at Richard’s false identification.
“You’re telling me Richard is using your son’s identity?”
“Daniel discovered what Richard was doing.”
Nora’s voice shook.
“He told me the investment company was stealing from clients through false accounts.”
“He reported it?”
“He planned to.”
“What happened?”
“The night before he was supposed to meet federal investigators, he vanished.”
Ethan felt the mystery widen around them.
“Did police investigate?”
“For years.”
Nora looked at Richard’s photograph.
“No body was found.”
Sophie whispered.
“Maybe he’s alive.”
Nora smiled sadly.
“I used to tell myself that.”
Ethan turned toward his attorney.
“Richard using Daniel’s identity can’t be coincidence.”
“It isn’t.”
The bank manager confirmed that the identification presented that morning carried Daniel Hayes’s real date of birth and Social Security number.
Richard had been using pieces of Daniel’s identity for years.
But why use it now?
The answer appeared inside Amelia’s video.
They resumed playback.
Amelia explained that Daniel Hayes had helped create the original accounting system later exploited by Richard.
Before disappearing, Daniel secretly duplicated portions of the Vale Capital records.
Those records could prove Richard had stolen millions.
Amelia believed Richard had spent years looking for them.
Then she said something that made Nora gasp.
“Daniel left a copy with his mother.”
Nora shook her head.
“No.”
Amelia continued.
“Nora does not know she has it.”
Everyone looked at her.
Nora appeared genuinely confused.
Amelia explained.
Years earlier, Daniel had repaired an antique music box for his mother.
Inside the base, beneath the mechanical cylinder, he had hidden a microfilm strip containing account numbers and transfer records.
Nora stood so quickly that her chair fell over.
“The music box is in my cottage.”
Ethan grabbed his phone.
Detectives raced back to Mystic.
They arrived thirty minutes too late.
Nora’s back door had been forced open.
The bedroom had been searched.
Every drawer had been emptied.
The music box was gone.
Richard had followed them because he knew Nora would eventually learn the truth.
But investigators discovered something else.
A small camera mounted beneath the cottage eaves had recorded the driveway.
Richard appeared clearly.
At 11:14 that morning, he entered Nora’s house.
At 11:23, he exited carrying the music box.
Then he climbed into a dark SUV.
The driver was visible for less than two seconds.
Ethan paused the footage.
“That’s Celeste.”
The detective leaned closer.
It was.
Celeste had been released after questioning pending further investigation.
She had immediately found Richard.
Every denial she had made was now worthless.
Ethan called her.
She answered on the fourth ring.
“Ethan.”
“Where are you?”
Silence.
“Celeste.”
“You don’t understand what’s happening.”
“I understand enough.”
“No, you don’t.”
“Then explain why you were driving Richard away from Nora’s house.”
Another silence.
This one lasted longer.
Finally Celeste whispered.
“Because Richard said he would kill me if I didn’t.”
Ethan stood perfectly still.
“Where are you now?”
“I can’t tell you.”
“Are you with him?”
“Yes.”
“Put him on.”
“Ethan, listen to me.”
Her voice cracked.
“He knows about Amelia’s video.”
“How?”
“Because he was inside your house before you got home yesterday.”
Ethan’s blood ran cold.
“What was he doing?”
“Looking for Sophie’s key.”
“And you helped him.”
Celeste started crying.
“I never meant for Sophie to get hurt.”
“You locked her in a suitcase.”
“I panicked.”
“Where were you taking her?”
Celeste breathed shakily.
“To Portugal.”
“Why?”
“Richard needed legal control of Sophie’s trust.”
Ethan closed his eyes.
There it was.
The admission.
Then Celeste added something worse.
“But that wasn’t the real reason he wanted Sophie.”
Ethan’s eyes opened.
“What real reason?”
Celeste whispered.
“Daniel Hayes is alive.”
Nora made a sound behind him.
Ethan tightened his grip on the phone.
“Where?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then how do you know?”
“Because Richard has been looking for him for twelve years.”
A man’s voice suddenly sounded in the background.
Richard.
Celeste inhaled sharply.
The call disconnected.
Ethan immediately tried again.
The phone was off.
Nora stared at him.
“My son is alive?”
Ethan did not know what to say.
Then his phone vibrated.
A message had arrived from Celeste’s number.
There was no text.
Only a photograph.
It showed the stolen music box sitting on a table.
Beside it was a newspaper dated that morning.
And behind the newspaper stood a man Ethan had never seen.
His hands were tied.
May you like
Nora collapsed into the chair.
Because the man in the photograph was Daniel Hayes.
