PART 5 — The Net Closes In
The room seemed to spin around me. Lucas's words sank in slowly.
"Tied up?" I repeated in a whisper. "Your father was tied up?"
Lucas nodded vigorously. Tears were now streaming unhindered down his cheeks. "Yes! His hands were bound behind his back with a plastic cable tie. I wanted to pull him out, but the door was jammed. And then... then the engine started smoking."
"Who was behind the wheel?" I asked, a freezing chill running down my spine.
"I couldn't see his face clearly; it was too dark and there was blood everywhere," Lucas stammered. "But when the man saw me, he kicked open the crushed driver's side door and crawled out. He looked at me for one second... and then ran into the woods."
"What did he look like?"
"Tall. A shaved head. A scar across his left cheek," Lucas said. "I wanted to go after him, but then the car caught fire. I couldn't do anything for Dad, Mom! Nothing! I tried to put out the fire with my jacket, but it was too hot!"
He collapsed and began to weep bitterly on the floor of his study. I knelt beside him and wrapped my arms around him. The doubt I had briefly felt for him vanished. This was my son. He was not a killer. He was a victim of the web of lies Daniel had woven around us.
But the confusion only grew. If Daniel had been kidnapped... by whom? And why did Julian claim that Daniel was on his way to see him?
"Lucas," I said softly, taking him by the shoulders. "Listen to me. Julian threatened me. He said he has footage of your car trailing your father's. He wants me to withdraw the claim on the Portland house, or he will report you to the police for murder."
Lucas looked up, shocked. "He has footage? That's impossible... unless..."
"Unless what?"
"Unless Julian was nearby," Lucas said firmly. "Unless he was the one who set up the kidnapping!"
A heavy silence fell over the room. Everything Julian had told me that night had been a distraction tactic. He wanted to frighten me. He wanted to prevent me from digging deeper into the finances and his mother's past.
"We have to go to the police, Lucas," I said. "We have to tell them what you saw."
"We can't, Mom," Lucas said fearfully. "If I tell them I was there and didn't say anything to the police, I'll be branded an accomplice. And who is going to believe me? There's no evidence Dad was bound... the wreckage burned completely."
He was right. The evidence was burned to ash. It would be my son's word against the police statement that it was a simple single-vehicle accident.
"Besides," Lucas added in a low voice, "there's something else you need to know about the company."
"What?"
"Dad didn't just transfer money to Portland over the last six months. He drained almost the entire capital of the business into an offshore account in the Cayman Islands. There's virtually nothing left in our business accounts. We are virtually bankrupt."
My breath caught. Thirty years of hard work. Our house, our retirement, our children's future... everything was gone.
"Who was that account transferred to?" I asked.
Lucas grabbed a sheet of paper from his desk and pushed it into my hands. "It's in the name of a shell company called Rosewood Holdings. And do you know who the sole shareholder of that company is?"
I looked at the name on the paper. It wasn't Julian. It wasn't Monique.
It was a name I hadn't heard in twenty years. The name of my own brother, who had vanished without a trace twenty years ago after being accused of fraud.
Arthur Vance-Clair.
My head began to spin. My husband, my brother, a second family, a kidnapping... The lie hadn't started thirty years ago with an affair. It was a conspiracy that encompassed my entire family.
At that moment, my phone vibrated in my pocket. A text message from an unknown number.
I opened the text. There was an address in a rough district near the port city, accompanied by a short message:
If you want to know what really happened to your brother and your husband, come alone. 04:30 AM. Do not come alone if you want your youngest daughter Sophie to wake up tomorrow.
I checked the clock. It was 04:05 AM. And Sophie was sleeping alone in her apartment on the other side of town.
