Chapter 14 - Denise
I called Denise so fast I nearly dropped my phone.
No answer.
Again.
No answer.
My hands began to shake.
Ethan was with us at the safe location, but Denise lived alone.
“She covered my shift,” I whispered. “She helped Ethan.”
Owens was already dispatching officers.
We listened to the radio traffic in terrible silence.
Front door open.
No response inside.
Kitchen clear.
Bedroom clear.
Back door damaged.
Then:
“Victim located in garage. Conscious.”
I started crying.
Denise had been shoved to the floor but was otherwise okay.
Mercer had demanded to know what Ethan said at the supermarket.
“He kept asking about numbers,” Denise told police later. “He thought Ethan heard something.”
That brought us back to 214.
The locker.
The key.
The evidence.
Mercer believed Ethan knew where it was.
He had targeted a six-year-old because a child had accidentally become part of an adult secret.
Something inside me hardened.
I had been scared for days.
Now I was angry.
Mark saw it.
“What are you thinking?”
“That I’m done letting everyone else decide what I should know.”
I called Detective Owens.
“I want everything. Every document I’m allowed to see. Every timeline. Every name.”
“Laura—”
“No more protecting me.”
She paused.
Then said, “Fair.”
That night, I read until two in the morning.
Bank transfers.
Invoices.
Shell vendors.
Visitor logs.
One name appeared more than once.
M. Bennett.
At first I thought it meant Mark.
Then I noticed the middle initial.
M.J. Bennett.
Mark was Mark Allen Bennett.
I showed him.
His face drained.
“That’s my father.”
I stared at him.
“Your father?”
“My dad’s name was Michael James Bennett.”
“Was?”
“He died nine years ago.”
Mark kept reading.
Then he froze.
The most recent payment to M.J. Bennett had been made four months ago.
Nine years after his death.
I looked at Mark.
“Someone has been using your father’s identity.”
He nodded slowly.
May you like
And then he whispered a name I had not heard in sixteen years.
“Uncle Ray.”
