Chapter 7: The Man Who Knew Too Much
The number belonged to a man named Daniel Forsythe.
Gerald's son.
Ethan called back from the hospital car park, standing under the gray afternoon sky with his jacket pulled closed against the wind.
"Mr.
Pierce." The voice was younger than he'd expected — mid-thirties, careful.
"I'm sorry to contact you this way.
I got your number from my father's files.
He kept a copy of everything."
"I read his letter," Ethan said.
A pause.
"Then you know what he admitted to.
What I'm calling about is what he didn't put in the letter."
Ethan leaned against the car.
"Tell me."
"My father retired fourteen months ago.
Two months after he sent that letter to Olivia Bennett, he had a visitor.
A woman.
She didn't give her name, but my father recognized her — he'd worked with her for eleven years." Daniel's voice was steady, but something underneath it was not.
"She told him that if the letter ever surfaced, she would ensure his retirement accounts were audited, his professional conduct reviewed, and his name attached to every irregular thing that had passed through his office in the last two decades.
She told him she had documentation ready."
"Victoria," Ethan said.
"He didn't tell me until last month," Daniel said.
"When he got sick.
He told me everything then.
He said he was sorry he hadn't spoken sooner." A pause.
"He passed away eight days ago."
The wind moved through the car park.
"I'm sorry," Ethan said.
"He wasn't a good man," Daniel said, without bitterness.
"But at the end he tried to be.
I'd like to honor that." Another pause.
"I have his files.
Everything.
The original drafts of the agreement, the notes from the meetings with Victoria, correspondence going back eleven years.
I also have the documentation she threatened him with — she sent him a copy of it as a warning.
It's in his files.
I've already spoken to a solicitor."
"What kind of documentation?" Ethan asked.
"Financial," Daniel said.
"Payments routed through shell accounts.
Some of them connected to your business, Mr.
Pierce.
Accounts you didn't know existed."
Ethan went very still.
"She used my business?"
"Peripherally.
Enough to create a connection if anyone looked." Daniel's voice was careful.
"I don't think you were the target.
I think you were the insurance policy.
If she ever needed leverage over you — if you ever found out and threatened to go to the police — she had something that pointed back at you."
The gray sky pressed down.
"She built a trap," Ethan said.
"She built several," Daniel said.
"My father's letter was meant to dismantle one of them.
I'd like to help dismantle the rest." He paused.
"I can bring everything to whoever you're working with legally.
I just needed to know you were actually moving forward before I committed."
"I'm moving forward," Ethan said.
"Then I'll be in touch with your lawyer." A brief pause.
"For what it's worth — my father said Olivia Bennett was the most composed person he'd ever seen in a room that was designed to frighten her.
He said he was ashamed of himself every day after."
Ethan looked up at the hospital building.
Third floor, second window from the left — the room where Lucy was sitting beside her mother.
"She had reason to be composed," Ethan said.
"She was protecting her daughter."
He ended the call and stood there for a moment.
Then he went inside.
Lucy was in the corridor outside Olivia's room, sitting on a plastic chair with her knees pulled up and her phone in her hands.
She looked up when she saw him.
"She's sleeping," Lucy said.
"The nurse said she needs to rest."
Ethan sat down in the chair beside her.
"Can I ask you something?" he said.
Lucy nodded.
"Were you scared?
This morning.
Walking into the chapel."
Lucy thought about it seriously, the way children do when they've decided to give an honest answer.
"Yes," she said.
"But Mom said being scared doesn't mean you're doing the wrong thing.
She said sometimes it means you're doing exactly the right thing."
Ethan looked at his hands.
"She's right," he said.
Lucy was quiet for a moment.
Then: "Are you going to make sure Victoria can't do anything else to us?"
"Yes," Ethan said.
"That's what I'm going to do."
Lucy looked at him with an expression that was not quite trust yet — it was something more cautious, more provisional, the look of someone who has learned to wait and see.
"Okay," she said.
She went back to her phone.
Ethan took out the business card Ruth had given him and dialed.
The lawyer answered on the second ring.
"My name is Ethan Pierce," he said.
"I have recordings, documents, a witness, and a second source who is willing to testify.
I need to move quickly." He paused.
"And I need to make sure a woman named Victoria Hale cannot access or destroy anything in the next twenty-four hours."
"Tell me everything," the lawyer said.
Down the corridor, a nurse came out of Olivia's room and nodded at Lucy — still sleeping, still stable, still here.
May you like
Lucy's shoulders dropped half an inch.
Ethan kept talking.
