Chapter 6
The necklace was missing.
I had kept it in a blue jewelry case in my bedroom, but the case was empty.
Ryan had taken it before his arrest.
Detective Ruiz contacted every bank my mother had used.
By evening, she found the safe-deposit box.
It was registered under my mother’s name, with me listed as the beneficiary.
Bank records showed someone had tried to access it two days before Christmas.
The man presented identification bearing my name and claimed to be my legal representative.
A bank employee noticed that the document looked altered and refused him entry.
Security footage showed Calvin Price at the counter.
Ruiz brought him in for questioning.
Calvin admitted Ryan had sent him.
“I never saw the key,” he said. “Ryan promised to deliver it after Christmas.”
“Where is the necklace now?” I demanded.
“I don’t know.”
Calvin looked exhausted.
He explained that Ryan had grown desperate after Victor’s death.
He believed the safe-deposit box contained evidence that could destroy Diane’s claim to the Hale fortune.
Ryan planned to empty the box, refinance my house, and leave me with the debt.
My fall down the stairs had been the first attempt to remove me.
The Christmas fraud was the second plan.
“What was the third?” Ruiz asked.
Calvin stared at me.
“The life insurance policy.”
Silence filled the room.
Calvin then gave police the driver’s name from the arson attack.
Marcus Vale was an enforcer Ryan had met through an illegal gambling business.
Police raided Marcus’s apartment.
They found the clothes from the surveillance video, gasoline containers, forged identification, and my mother’s necklace.
They also found a photograph of me leaving the hotel.
Our location had been compromised.
Ruiz moved us again, this time to a protected apartment.
The next morning, she escorted me to the bank.
My hands shook as I inserted the brass key into the lock.
The manager used a second key.
Together, we opened the box.
Inside were three flash drives, two ledgers, and a recording my mother had made shortly before her death.
Her face appeared on the screen.
For a moment, I forgot how to breathe.
“If Claire is watching this,” she began, “then Diane has found her.”
Tears blurred my vision.
My mother explained that Diane and Victor had stolen millions from elderly patients through fake fees and fraudulent insurance claims.
When my mother discovered the scheme, Victor offered her money.
She accepted the settlement only because she feared for my safety.
Then she secretly copied their records.
“I planned to go to the police,” she said. “But Diane threatened my daughter.”
My mother looked directly into the camera.
“Claire, if Ryan Mercer ever enters your life, run.”
A cry escaped my throat.
She had known his name.
She had tried to warn me.
But she died before she could.
The recording ended with another revelation.
My mother did not die from a sudden heart attack as I had believed.
In the weeks before her death, she suspected someone was replacing her medication.
She collected samples and hid them inside the box.
Ruiz sent the old pills to a laboratory.
The results returned two days later.
The medication contained a chemical that could trigger heart failure.
My mother had been murdered.
Diane had visited her the day before she died.
Police obtained a warrant charging Diane with murder.
But when officers arrived at the house, she was gone.
Thomas’s car was gone too.
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On his hotel bed, we found a note written in Diane’s handwriting.
Come alone with the evidence, or Thomas dies tonight.
