Chapter 9 - THE PARENTS WHO NEVER DIEDFor twenty-four hours, I existed in a fog.
Ashley survived.
The doctors placed her under protection.
Christopher contacted federal investigators.
The possibility that my parents were alive changed everything.
But there was no proof.
Until a photograph arrived at my lawyer's office.
No sender.
No message.
Just a picture.
My mother.
My father.
Standing together.
Taken three months earlier.
I stared at it until tears blurred my vision.
My mother was wearing the blue scarf she had given me on my eighteenth birthday.
My father looked older.
But unmistakably alive.
Christopher turned the photograph over.
There was one sentence.
Come to the old lighthouse at midnight. Alone.
I refused.
Christopher refused to let me go alone.
We went with investigators.
At midnight, the lighthouse was empty.
Except for a wooden chair.
And a cassette recorder.
The voice on it was my mother's.
“Elizabeth, I'm sorry.”
I started crying.
She explained that after my father's business investigation, they discovered they were being watched.
Their enemies had influence everywhere.
Police.
Bank employees.
Lawyers.
Even people they trusted.
So they staged their deaths.
My father disappeared first.
My mother followed.
They had spent years dismantling the network from the shadows.
Then she said the part I could barely understand.
“Jared's family was never the end goal.”
The recording continued.
“The trust was created as bait.”
Bait.
For whom?
My mother answered.
“For the people who killed everyone else.”
I froze.
The wedding.
The marriage.
The trust.
The apartment.
Every part had been designed to force the hidden network into action.
But why me?
Because my father believed I was the only person they would approach.
My mother continued:
“They think Elizabeth inherited money.”
“She did.”
“But what they don't know is that she inherited control.”
Control of what?
The recording ended.
Another one started.
My father's voice.
“The company was never bankrupt.”
I stared at Christopher.
“What company?”
“My father's company.”
“He hid the money.”
“How much?”
My father gave a number.
It was staggering.
Billions.
Hidden through shell corporations.
And the trust gave me legal control over the final holding company.
That meant the family hadn't married me for millions.
They had married me for billions.
But the biggest twist came next.
My father said:
“Dwight knows.”
I whispered:
“No.”
“He knows because I told him years ago.”
My father continued.
“He was supposed to protect Elizabeth.”
Then silence.
Christopher looked at me.
“If this recording is authentic, Dwight may have been trying to get you away from Jared's family.”
I shook my head.
“He slapped me.”
“No.”
I looked at him.
“Your father did.”
I remembered Dwight's silence.
His trembling hands.
His eyes.
He had never struck me.
But he had allowed it.
Why?
Because maybe he knew that if he fought Jared openly, they would kill him too.
The recording ended with one final message.
“Elizabeth, when the lawyer gives you the letter, do not trust the first explanation.”
“What letter?”
Christopher looked at me.
Then a courier appeared outside the lighthouse.
He handed me an envelope.
My name was handwritten across it.
I opened it.
Inside was a single page.
Three sentences.
Your husband married you for a reason.
Your parents stayed dead for a reason.
And Jared slapped you because he knew the countdown had started.
May you like
At the bottom was one final line.
Twenty-four hours remain.
