Chapter 3 - The Man at the DoorNobody moved.
The hallway outside the study was silent.
Then the door handle turned.
Dad shoved the lock into place.
“Back door,” he whispered.
I stared at him.
“You want me to run?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because if he sees you, everything changes.”
The door shook.
Bang.
My mother gasped.
“Daniel!”
Dad grabbed my arm.
“Go!”
For once, I listened.
I ran through the connecting hallway toward the kitchen.
But before I reached the back door, I heard glass breaking.
Someone had entered through the study window.
I stopped.
Dad shouted from behind me.
“Get out!”
I pushed open the back door.
Cold air hit my face.
I ran across the lawn.
Behind me, voices exploded inside Blackwood Manor.
Then a gunshot cracked through the night.
I dropped to the ground.
For several seconds, I couldn't breathe.
Another shot.
Then silence.
I crawled behind a stone garden wall.
The black SUV remained at the end of the driveway.
The headlights were still on.
The driver's door opened.
A man stepped out.
Tall.
Gray coat.
Silver hair.
He looked directly toward the wall where I was hiding.
Our eyes met.
He didn't look surprised.
He simply raised his hand.
In it was the same photograph.
The one I had found in Dad's study.
He pointed at himself.
Then at me.
Then he mouthed two words.
“My son.”
A siren sounded in the distance.
The man got back into the SUV.
It disappeared before the police arrived.
Twenty minutes later, officers surrounded Blackwood Manor.
Dad was questioned.
Mom was crying.
Kyle was shouting at everyone.
I sat in the kitchen with an ice pack against my jaw.
One detective approached me.
“You know the man who came here?”
“No.”
“Your father does.”
I looked toward Dad.
He was being escorted outside.
He turned his head.
For one second, our eyes met.
His expression wasn't angry.
It was desperate.
The detective sat beside me.
“Your family has had some interesting financial activity.”
I frowned.
“What does that mean?”
He placed a folder on the table.
“Your father has been moving money through several shell companies.”
“Why are you showing me this?”
“Because one of those companies lists you as a beneficiary.”
I stared at him.
“What?”
The detective opened the folder.
There was my name.
A trust account.
A number beneath it.
I read it twice.
Then a third time.
$18,700,000.
My hands went numb.
“That's impossible.”
The detective shook his head.
“No.”
He closed the folder.
“What's impossible is that you didn't know.”
He stood.
Then he leaned closer.
“One more thing.”
“What?”
“Your father reported you missing six years ago.”
I stared at him.
“I've been living here for six years.”
The detective's face tightened.
“That's the problem.”
He walked away.
I looked down at the folder.
There was a final page.
A signature.
Mine.
May you like
But I had never signed it.
And the date was three years before I was born.
