Chapter 11 - The Price of Looking
Paul Raines’s death changed everything.
This was no longer a family scandal with forged signatures and stolen money.
Someone was cleaning the board.
Reese placed Michael, Emily, Mason, and Helen under police protection at a hotel registered under another name.
Emily hated the room immediately.
No windows that opened. One door. Two officers outside.
Mason tried to make it an adventure.
“Can we order pancakes for dinner?”
Emily smiled despite herself. “Absolutely.”
Michael watched them from the other side of the room.
He wanted to cross the distance.
He didn’t.
Later, while Mason slept, Emily said, “You can stop standing like a guard dog.”
Michael sat.
“I don’t know how to talk to you.”
“Start with not making this about how bad you feel.”
He absorbed that.
“You’re right.”
She looked surprised.
Michael continued, “I hit you because I was angry and because I trusted an old story about Sophia more than I trusted you. There’s no excuse. I’m going to therapy. I’m going to tell the police exactly what I did if they ask. And if you decide you can’t stay married to me, I’ll still do everything I can to make you and the kids safe.”
Emily’s eyes filled, but she didn’t rescue him from the consequences.
“That’s the first apology you’ve given me that doesn’t ask for something back.”
His phone buzzed.
Unknown number.
A photo arrived.
Sophia standing outside Mason’s school two weeks earlier.
Another message followed.
YOU SHOULD HAVE STOPPED.
Michael showed Reese.
The number was untraceable.
Then Mason stirred.
“Mom?”
Emily went to him.
He looked frightened.
“I remembered something.”
“What?”
“The night Aunt Sophia was in Dad’s office, she said a name.”
Michael leaned closer.
“What name?”
“Mr. Bell.”
Helen’s face changed.
“Arthur Bell?”
Michael frowned. “Who is that?”
“Your father’s old accountant.”
Reese searched the name.
Arthur Bell had retired three years earlier.
He had also disappeared two days after Thomas Carter died.
No death certificate.
No forwarding address.
Nothing.
Emily whispered, “Maybe he didn’t disappear.”
Reese nodded. “Maybe he ran.”
Then Helen remembered one more thing.
“Thomas used to say Arthur had a cabin in Vermont.”
Michael looked at Reese.
May you like
She was already reaching for her coat.
If Arthur Bell was alive, he might be the only witness left who knew exactly why Thomas Carter never made it to Friday’s board meeting.
