Chapter 17 - DanielThe court process began within days.
Pike was charged.
My mother was questioned.
Dana cooperated.
The family trust was frozen.
The Mustang remained parked outside.
The Jeep was never delivered.
But the biggest mystery still remained.
Daniel.
The uncle I had believed dead my entire life.
The man who had supposedly disappeared.
The man who had left a trail behind every secret.
Then one rainy afternoon, someone knocked on our door.
Three times.
Sage looked at me.
I opened it.
An old man stood outside.
Gray hair.
Walking cane.
Eyes that looked hauntingly familiar.
Noah came up behind me.
He stopped.
“Dad.”
The man nodded.
“My son.”
Sage whispered:
“That's him.”
Daniel Ellis walked inside.
He looked at the photographs on the wall.
At my father.
At me.
Then he sat.
“I am sorry.”
“For what?”
“For all of it.”
He told us everything.
He had survived the fire.
He had spent years in hiding.
He believed someone was hunting him.
He eventually discovered Pike's network.
He stayed away because every attempt to return put another family member at risk.
Then Robert found him.
“My brother begged me to come home.”
“Why didn't you?”
“Because he had already been poisoned.”
Sage looked at him.
“Did Grandpa know?”
“Yes.”
“Did Grandma?”
“Yes.”
My mother entered.
When she saw Daniel, she stopped.
Her mouth trembled.
“Daniel.”
He looked at her.
“You should have told them.”
“I was afraid.”
“You were afraid of the wrong person.”
She cried.
“I thought I could fix it.”
“No,” Daniel said.
“You thought you could own it.”
Silence.
Daniel placed a small wooden box on the table.
“This was your father's.”
Inside was a final letter.
I opened it.
This one was addressed to me.
My hands shook as I read.
My father admitted his mistakes.
He admitted hiding money.
He admitted protecting me by keeping me ignorant.
And he admitted his greatest failure.
“Your mother was never the only person I feared.”
I read the next line.
“I feared what would happen when you learned that I once helped cover up the original theft.”
My breath stopped.
He had known.
He had participated.
Not in the murder.
But in the cover-up.
Then the final paragraph.
“I am leaving you one final choice. Tell the truth and lose everything you know. Or protect the family and become the person I spent my life trying not to become.”
I looked up.
Sage was standing beside me.
She read over my shoulder.
“Grandpa wanted you to choose.”
“Yes.”
“What will you choose?”
I looked at my mother.
At Dana.
At Brin.
At Daniel.
At Noah.
Then at the trust documents.
I knew the answer.
“The truth.”
My mother closed her eyes.
Daniel nodded.
But before anyone could speak, my lawyer's phone rang.
He answered.
His face changed.
“What happened?”
He looked at me.
“The court found another beneficiary.”
“Who?”
He swallowed.
“A woman named Clara Hart.”
Evelyn went completely still.
“That's impossible.”
“Why?”
“She died thirty years ago.”
My lawyer looked at the document.
“She didn't.”
May you like
Then he gave me the worst news yet.
“She's filing in federal court tomorrow.”
