Chapter 7 - THE WOMAN IN THE PHOTOGRAPH
The middle of January turned our lives into a maze of dead men and missing people.
My mother was gone.
Charles Merrick was gone.
Daniel Price was gone.
Three people connected to my father’s secrets disappeared within days.
Police could not prove they were together.
They also could not prove they were alive.
Maya recovered physically faster than emotionally.
She checked Liam constantly.
His breathing.
His formula.
His blankets.
His temperature.
Sometimes I woke at three in the morning and found her standing over his crib.
“Is he breathing?”
“Yes.”
“You checked?”
“Yes.”
“Check again.”
So I did.
Every time.
I would never tell her she was overreacting.
Not after what happened.
One night she asked:
“Did your mother hate me because of my father?”
“I don’t know.”
“She knew who I was.”
“I don’t know that.”
“Your father did.”
“Yes.”
“What if Eleanor did too?”
The possibility had been haunting me.
Maya’s father discovered something.
My father documented him.
Thomas died.
Years later, I met Thomas’s daughter.
Then Eleanor aggressively welcomed Maya into the family.
Too aggressively, I now remembered.
She had insisted we marry quickly.
She offered to pay for the wedding.
She pushed us toward using family attorneys.
When Maya became pregnant after years of trying, Eleanor became almost obsessive.
At the time, I thought it was joy.
Now everything looked different.
Rachel found the first major connection.
Thomas Hart had not merely been an accountant.
He had been chief financial controller for one of my father’s logistics companies.
For eight years.
Maya never knew.
Her mother had told her Thomas worked for a regional shipping group.
Technically true.
That shipping group belonged to Robert Bennett.
My father.
“Why would my mother hide that?”
Maya asked.
We found out when Rachel located her.
Maya’s mother, Linda Hart, lived in Arizona.
Maya rarely spoke to her.
Their relationship had broken after Thomas died.
Linda became withdrawn.
Paranoid.
Then she moved across the country.
Maya thought grief destroyed her.
Maybe fear did.
We called.
Linda answered on the fourth ring.
“Maya?”
“Mom.”
Long silence.
“Are you okay?”
“No.”
Linda’s voice changed immediately.
“What happened?”
“Do you know Robert Bennett?”
The silence was absolute.
Maya started crying before her mother answered.
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“You married his son.”
“I know.”
“You married Robert Bennett’s son.”
“Yes.”
Linda began breathing quickly.
“I told you not to move to New York.”
“You never told me why.”
“I couldn’t.”
“Why?”
“Because they were watching.”
Maya gripped the phone.
“Who?”
“The Bennetts.”
I looked at her.
She looked at me.
“David isn’t his father.”
“I know.”
“Then why did you never tell me?”
“Because your father made me promise.”
“Dad?”
“Yes.”
“Before he died?”
Linda started crying.
“Three days before.”
Maya sat down.
“What did Dad know?”
“Too much.”
“What?”
“I don’t know all of it.”
“Mom.”
“He found money moving through Robert’s companies.”
“What money?”
“Money that didn’t belong there.”
“Criminal money?”
“I don’t know.”
“He said Robert had built two companies.”
“One real.”
“One hidden.”
The double books.
I mouthed the words to Maya.
She nodded.
Linda continued.
“Your father wanted to go to the authorities.”
“What happened?”
“Robert begged him not to.”
“Then?”
“They fought.”
“Then Dad died.”
Linda sobbed.
“Yes.”
“Did Robert kill him?”
“I don’t know.”
The answer sounded truthful.
“But someone followed us after the funeral.”
“Daniel Price?”
Linda became silent.
“Mom?”
“Where did you hear that name?”
Every hair on my arms lifted.
“You know him?”
“He came to the house.”
“When?”
“After your father died.”
“What did he want?”
“A key.”
“What key?”
“I never knew.”
“Did Dad have it?”
“Daniel thought so.”
“What did you tell him?”
“That Tom left nothing.”
“Was that true?”
Another silence.
“No.”
Maya stood.
“What did he leave?”
“A photograph.”
“A photograph of what?”
“A woman.”
I looked at Rachel.
She started writing.
Linda said:
“I still have it.”
“Who is she?”
“I don’t know.”
“Send it.”
Ten minutes later, the photograph arrived.
It was old.
Maybe twenty years.
A younger Robert Bennett stood at a company event.
Beside him was Thomas Hart.
And between them stood a woman.
Dark hair.
Green dress.
Pregnant.
On the back, Thomas had written:
Ask Eleanor whose child she was carrying.
My stomach dropped.
Maya stared at the woman.
“That’s your mother.”
“Yes.”
Eleanor.
Pregnant.
But the date made no sense.
The photograph had been taken twenty-nine years earlier.
Chloe was twenty-eight.
Rachel did the math before I said it.
“This was probably when Eleanor was pregnant with Chloe.”
“Yes.”
Maya looked at the note.
“Ask Eleanor whose child she was carrying.”
Nobody spoke.
The trust.
Chloe.
My father.
Daniel.
Thomas.
The hidden money.
Suddenly another possibility emerged.
“What if Chloe isn’t my father’s daughter?”
I whispered.
Rachel slowly nodded.
“That could affect the trust.”
“How?”
“If Robert believed she was his daughter when he created it—”
“But she wasn’t?”
“That could create a motive for fraud.”
Maya looked at me.
“Whose daughter would she be?”
I stared at the photograph.
Thomas had specifically written the question.
Which meant he knew.
Or suspected.
We enlarged the image.
Behind the three adults, partly cut off by the frame, stood another man.
Only half his face was visible.
But I recognized him.
Older now.
He had sat at my mother’s kitchen table before I left Germany.
He had notarized my signatures.
May you like
And according to Rachel, he was supposed to be one of my father’s oldest business attorneys.
Gordon Pell.
