Chapter 16 - The Last Secret
Ortiz arrived twenty minutes later.
The photograph wasn't recent.
It had been taken years earlier.
On the back was a date.
The same date Rachel originally disappeared.
Rachel stared at it.
Then she understood.
“Victor wasn't alone.”
She had always known Victor worked with others.
But she had assumed he controlled the organization.
The photograph proved otherwise.
Standing behind Victor was another man.
Older.
Expensive suit.
Face partly obscured.
Pike identified him.
Graham Vale.
Rachel and Harper's father.
My daughters' grandfather.
A man everyone believed had died twelve years earlier.
Harper nearly dropped the photograph.
“My father is dead.”
Ortiz shook her head.
“No.”
Financial records told another story.
Graham had staged his death.
He had helped create Victor's network.
Victor hadn't recruited Rachel by accident.
He had been introduced to her by her own father.
Suddenly the deepest betrayal wasn't inside my house.
It was inside Harper's childhood.
Graham had spent years building a criminal network while presenting himself as a respectable businessman.
Victor eventually took control.
Then Graham disappeared.
But he was alive.
And the anonymous envelope suggested he was watching.
Violet sat beside me.
“Dad?”
“Yes?”
“Please tell me we're not doing this again.”
I wanted to promise.
May you like
Instead, I told her the truth.
“We're going to finish it properly.”
