Grant ordered the detention cell opened immediately.
The man inside did not resist.
Without Jackson’s hairstyle and borrowed clothing, the resemblance weakened.
He was younger.
Thinner through the jaw.
But at a distance, on camera, after a chaotic shooting, it had been enough.
His name was Ryan Mercer.
He had worked for Archer Seven.
Jackson paid him two hundred thousand dollars.
“When did you switch?”
“At the hydro plant.”
During the shooting.
Jackson had crawled behind machinery.
Ryan entered through a maintenance corridor wearing similar clothes.
In the confusion, agents handcuffed the wrong man.
“Why?”
Ryan looked terrified now.
“Jackson said he needed one day.”
“For what?”
“To finish things with his father.”
Charles.
The aerial footage showed two boats moving toward the coordinates of Victor’s wreck.
Coast Guard vessels followed.
Grant, Rebecca, Marcus, and I were flown to Maine.
I did not ask to go onto the water.
For once, I understood that proximity was not control.
We remained at the command center.
A drone transmitted live video.
Charles reached the wreck site first.
He anchored.
Jackson arrived four minutes later.
He carried a handgun.
Charles appeared unarmed.
Even through aerial footage, I could see them arguing.
No audio.
Then Charles pointed toward the water.
Jackson shook his head.
Charles pointed again.
A diving unit had been prepared on his boat.
“He wants Jackson to retrieve something,” I said.
Rebecca nodded.
“Victor’s case.”
Jackson eventually put down the gun.
He pulled on diving equipment.
That surprised Grant.
“He trusts Charles enough to enter the water?”
“No,” I said.
“He wants whatever is down there more than he fears him.”
Jackson descended.
Charles picked up the gun.
Of course.
Grant swore.
Coast Guard accelerated.
Too far.
Jackson disappeared beneath the surface.
Charles stood alone holding his son’s weapon.
Then he looked directly toward the drone.
He smiled.
“He knows we’re watching,” Marcus said.
Charles lifted a phone.
Mine rang.
Unknown number.
Grant answered on speaker.
“Hello, Sofia.”
Grant’s expression hardened.
“Charles.”
“I assume Emily is there.”
I spoke.
“Yes.”
“Good.”
“Where is Teresa?”
“Safe.”
“She’s already safe.”
A pause.
He had not known.
That pleased me.
“You’re losing track of people.”
Charles laughed.
“Your brother remains predictable.”
“He isn’t my brother.”
“You grew up with him. Biology is suddenly important to you?”
“Only when criminals use it to steal.”
That stopped the laughter.
Below the surface, Jackson was still diving.
“What is he looking for?”
“Proof.”
“Of Victor’s murder?”
“Victor murdered himself through weakness.”
“You sabotaged his boat.”
“He chose betrayal.”
“Did you kill him?”
Grant watched the recording indicator.
Charles knew we wanted the admission.
He was too careful.
“I allowed consequences.”
Not enough legally.
Enough morally.
“What about Rebecca’s boat?”
“She became inconvenient.”
Rebecca stepped toward the phone.
“You paid someone to sabotage it.”
Charles’s voice changed.
“Rebecca.”
“Say it.”
“You survived.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
“It’s the only one you require.”
Again, careful.
Jackson surfaced.
He held a black case.
Even through the drone image, I saw Charles straighten.
“That’s it,” Rebecca whispered.
Jackson climbed aboard.
Charles pointed the gun at him.
Jackson froze.
“Charles,” I said.
He ignored me.
The drone camera zoomed.
Jackson placed the case on the deck.
Charles ordered him backward.
Then opened it.
Inside were several objects wrapped in plastic.
A camera.
Documents.
And something metallic.
Charles lifted the camera.
Then threw the rest aside.
Jackson lunged.
Charles fired.
Rebecca screamed.
Jackson fell.
The bullet struck his shoulder.
Not chest.
He rolled behind the cabin.
Coast Guard vessels were closing.
Charles started the engine.
Jackson remained aboard.
The boat accelerated.
“Can they intercept?”
Grant listened to radio traffic.
“They’re trying.”
Charles returned to the phone.
“Your brother always mistakes courage for timing.”
“He came because he knew you’d destroy the evidence.”
“He came because he wants to beat me.”
“Same thing to him.”
Charles laughed.
“You understand him better than Linda does.”
“Maybe because I spent thirty years cleaning up his messes.”
“Exactly.”
Something in his tone bothered me.
“What?”
“You still think Jackson is the important son.”
I looked at Grant.
She heard it too.
“What does that mean?”
Charles was silent.
Then:
“Ask Linda about Matthew.”
Rebecca frowned.
“Who is Matthew?”
Charles ended the call.
Grant immediately contacted the station.
Linda was questioned.
At first she denied knowing anyone named Matthew.
Then investigators told her Charles had used the name.
She broke.
Grant put her on video.
Linda’s face filled the screen.
“Who is Matthew?” I asked.
Her lips trembled.
“My first child.”
Jackson was not Linda’s only son.
She had given birth at seventeen.
Before marrying Robert.
The baby was adopted privately.
Father unknown on official records.
But Linda knew.
“Charles?”
She nodded.
My stomach turned.
Charles had fathered two children with Linda.
Matthew first.
Jackson years later.
“What happened to Matthew?”
“I thought he was adopted.”
“You thought?”
“Charles arranged it.”
“Where is he now?”
“I don’t know.”
Grant asked for the birth date.
Linda gave it.
The records team searched.
Private adoption.
Sealed.
Court order obtained urgently because of the active case.
The adoptive family had renamed the child.
Matthew became Daniel.
Daniel Cole.
The bank administrator.
The man who helped Charles access the Montreal vault.
The man who had supposedly traveled with Charles.
Charles’s other son had been inside my bank.
Ethan Cole, the detention officer who helped Jackson escape, was Daniel’s adoptive younger brother.
Not biologically related to Charles.
But recruited through Daniel.
The structure snapped into focus.
Charles had two biological sons.
Daniel.
Jackson.
One inside the financial system.
One inside the family.
He had positioned both.
Linda stared at the screen.
“Daniel is alive?”
Grant looked toward me.
The question mattered because Jackson claimed Daniel had been shot at Willow Street Station.
The dead man found there had been identified as Daniel Cole using documents.
But had DNA confirmed it?
No.
The body had severe facial trauma.
Identification relied on wallet, fingerprints from employment records, and dental comparison.
Fingerprints could be manipulated if Charles controlled the records.
Dental files too.
He had done it before.
Grant ordered DNA testing.
Marcus looked horrified.
“Daniel may still be inside the bank system.”
His credentials were suspended.
But he could have created other access.
Charles had spent decades teaching identity substitution.
Victor died as Charles.
Charles lived as Victor.
Rebecca lived as dead.
I was meant to become Rebecca Hale.
Ryan became Jackson.
Now Daniel may have created a corpse for himself.
“What does Charles want Daniel for?”
Marcus answered.
“To control Victor’s estate.”
If Charles failed through Jackson, Daniel provided another route.
But Daniel was not Victor’s son either.
“He can falsify paternity.”
Exactly.
Charles could present Daniel as Victor’s biological child.
Unlike Jackson, Daniel had no public connection to Linda or Charles.
Cleaner.
Less suspicious.
A hidden heir.
That was why Charles said we were focused on the wrong son.
Jackson was leverage.
Daniel was succession.
The Coast Guard nearly reached Charles’s boat.
Then smoke erupted from the engine compartment.
Charles had started a fire.
Again.
A boat.
Again.
Rebecca stared at the screen.
“He’s doing it deliberately.”
Charles put on a life vest.
Jackson, wounded, emerged from behind the cabin.
They fought.
The drone captured everything.
Jackson hit Charles.
Charles dropped the gun.
Jackson kicked it overboard.
Fire spread.
Coast Guard shouted through loudspeakers.
Charles grabbed the recovered marine camera.
Jackson grabbed him.
For several seconds, father and son struggled beside the railing.
Then Charles struck Jackson’s injured shoulder.
Jackson fell.
Charles jumped into the water with the camera.
A Coast Guard swimmer entered after him.
Jackson remained aboard the burning boat.
Another rescue swimmer reached him.
The fire intensified.
Then the fuel ignited.
The drone image became white.
Rebecca turned away.
When the picture returned, debris covered the water.
Coast Guard recovered Jackson.
Alive.
Burned.
Unconscious.
Charles was missing.
The swimmer searching for him found only a life vest.
Empty.
Again.
Marcus whispered, “He planned it.”
Of course he did.
Charles had repeated Rebecca’s disappearance.
Use fire.
Create chaos.
Leave evidence suggesting death.
Disappear.
But this time cameras had recorded him entering the water alive.
He could not become another convenient corpse without scrutiny.
Divers recovered Victor’s black case.
The marine camera was gone with Charles.
But several waterproof documents remained.
One was Victor’s handwritten statement describing Charles’s threat to kill him.
Another listed accounts.
The third was a letter to Charles.
Victor had written:
You think becoming me gives you what I own. It does not. I transferred the controlling interest before you learned Emily existed.
Below that was the name of a trust.
HALE-WILSON CUSTODIAL TRUST.
Marcus stared.
“That’s not in our records.”
Rebecca shook her head.
“I’ve never heard of it.”
Grant examined the listed trustee.
Teresa Vale.
Beneficiaries:
Emily Wilson.
Elena Vale.
And one third person.
Matthew Vale.
Daniel Cole.
I stared at the page.
Victor had included Charles’s first son.
Why?
A handwritten note explained.
Matthew is innocent of his father’s crimes. If Charles raises him, this trust may be the only leverage capable of bringing him home.
Victor knew about Daniel.
He had tried to protect him too.
Charles had hidden that fact.
If Daniel discovered Victor had left him an equal share with Elena and me, he might stop helping his father.
Grant immediately ordered a search for Daniel.
Marcus checked the Hale-Wilson trust through international systems.
It existed.
Value:
More than ninety million dollars.
Frozen for decades under Victor’s instructions.
Distribution required verified identities of all living beneficiaries.
Charles had not been trying merely to steal Arthur’s forty-six million or Victor’s visible estate.
He was trying to unlock the hidden trust.
And he could not do it without three people.
Elena.
Me.
Daniel.
That was why he needed me alive until the acknowledgment became effective.
That was why he built a false identity instead of simply killing me.
And that was why Daniel had infiltrated the bank.
Marcus’s phone rang.
His bank’s security director.
A restricted account had just received a beneficiary verification request.
Hale-Wilson Custodial Trust.
Submitted using Daniel Cole’s credentials.
One beneficiary had been verified.
Daniel.
Second:
Elena.
Using documents stolen from Teresa.
Third:
Emily.
Pending biometric confirmation.
Grant looked at me.
“He needs your face.”
My phone vibrated.
Video call.
Unknown number.
Grant signaled for recording.
I answered.
Daniel Cole appeared.
Alive.
Behind him was Charles.
Also alive.
Water dripping from his silver hair.
Daniel looked frightened.
Charles looked satisfied.
“Hello, Emily.”
I said nothing.
Charles smiled.
“We have one final family transaction to complete.”
Click here to continue reading: PART 17: Charles Needed My Face to Unlock Ninety Million Dollars, but Daniel Finally Learned Why His Father Had Hidden Victor’s Trust From Him
The Morning After My Brother’s Wedding, One Missing Number Turned Every Family Favor I Had Ever Made Into Evidence
Part 16 of 24
