“Why?”
Rebecca pulled away.
Her face hardened.
“Because of Mark.”
The room became silent.
Daniel whispered, “My father?”
Rebecca nodded.
I shook my head immediately.
“No. You disappeared before Mark and I had been married five years.”
“Yes.”
She looked at me with terrible sadness.
“And
by then, Carol, he was already stealing from your father.”
Rebecca told us everything.
She had worked as a junior accountant for a construction company in 1999. Mark handled supplier contracts for one of their subcontractors.
Rebecca discovered duplicate invoices.
Fake vendors.
Money flowing through shell companies.
At first, she thought it was ordinary fraud.
Then she found names connected to land purchases.
Judges.
Inspectors.
A county official.
And Mark.
She confronted him.
That was her mistake.
Two days later, someone followed her home.
Then her apartment was broken into.
Then brake fluid leaked from her car.
Dad realized what was happening.
He arranged for Rebecca to disappear.
The car in the ravine?
Staged.
The blood found inside?
Rebecca’s, taken from a medical sample.
The police investigation closed within weeks.
She became Rachel Bennett and moved three states away.
“Why didn’t Mark expose the truth?” Daniel asked.
“Because he thought
I was dead too.”
Rebecca looked at me.
“Only Dad and Mr. Hale knew.”
I sank into the chair.
All those years.
All those Christmases.
All those family photographs.
Mark smiling beside me.
Mark knowing that my sister had vanished after discovering his corruption.
“I don’t understand Jenna,” I said. “Why her?”
Rebecca’s expression changed.
“Because Jenna isn’t just sleeping with him.”
She pulled a photograph from her purse.
Jenna.
Much younger.
Maybe sixteen.
Standing beside an older woman.
And Mark.
Daniel stared.
“What the hell is that?”
Rebecca said, “The woman beside Jenna was Elaine Mercer.”
I knew the name.
One of Mark’s former business partners.
She had died six years ago.
Rebecca continued.
“Elaine helped Mark hide money. When she became sick, she threatened to expose him unless he took care of her daughter.”
Daniel turned white.
“Jenna is Elaine’s daughter.”
“Yes.”
