Chapter 5 - The Death Certificate Marcus Bought
The envelope contained a photocopy of a death certificate.
Ethan Cole.
Age twenty-nine.
Cause of death: automobile accident.
Ethan was Daniel’s father.
At least, that was the name he had given me.
He disappeared two weeks before our planned courthouse wedding.
Marcus arrived at my apartment with the certificate three days later.
He told me Ethan’s car had gone off a mountain road in Colorado.
There had been a fire.
No body could be recovered.
I was six months pregnant.
Grief nearly killed me.
Now my father’s handwriting covered the bottom of the photocopy.
Certificate purchased through Dr. Leonard Price.
No body. No accident report. No confirmed death.
I looked at Marcus.
“Ethan is alive?”
Marcus stepped toward his car.
Security blocked him.
“Answer me.”
“He left you.”
“That is not what I asked.”
“He took money.”
“From whom?”
Marcus looked toward the cameras.
He would not answer publicly.
I handed Daniel to Jonathan and followed Marcus into the back of an ambulance where reporters could not hear.
He sat across from me, furious.
“You have no idea what Ethan was involved in.”
“Then tell me.”
“He approached you because of Dad.”
The words felt familiar.
Another man entering my life for the Carter name.
“Was he paid?”
“No.”
“Did you threaten him?”
Marcus looked away.
I knew.
“You did.”
“He was investigating the company.”
“Investigating what?”
“The old wallet division.”
The same phrase appeared everywhere.
My father’s wallet.
The shell company.
The hidden account.
“The wallet division closed twenty-five years ago.”
“Officially.”
Marcus leaned forward.
“Dad used it to move cash through overseas leather suppliers. Bribes, political payments, undeclared acquisitions.”
“Ethan knew?”
“He was a federal investigator.”
My breath stopped.
“What agency?”
“Financial crimes.”
“You told me he repaired motorcycles.”
“He lied to you.”
“And you?”
“I protected the family.”
“By faking his death?”
“He agreed to disappear.”
“Why?”
“Because Dad offered him immunity and money.”
I shook my head.
“Ethan would not leave Daniel.”
“You didn’t know the child was a boy yet.”
“He knew I was pregnant.”
Marcus’s expression changed slightly.
There was more.
“What happened after he left?”
“I don’t know.”
“You always know.”
“Dad handled it.”
The ambulance doors opened.
Jonathan stood outside.
“We found a second recording.”
My father’s cassette contained multiple tracks.
On the next one, a younger male voice argued with William Carter.
Ethan.
“I will not abandon Sarah.”
My father replied, “Then Marcus will expose your identity and the investigation collapses.”
“I can protect her.”
“No. You can protect the evidence or protect your relationship. Not both.”
“I choose Sarah.”
A loud impact interrupted the recording.
Then Marcus’s voice.
“You don’t get to choose.”
The recording ended.
I stared at my brother.
“What did you do to him?”
Marcus looked shaken for the first time.
“I drove him to the airport.”
“Was he conscious?”
Silence.
“You drugged him.”
“He was becoming dangerous.”
“To whom?”
“To all of us.”
Daniel appeared outside the ambulance holding the old wallet.
He had taken it from my bag.
“Mom,” he said, “there’s a picture behind Grandpa’s picture.”
I opened the second hidden seam.
A smaller photograph had been folded beneath the first.
Ethan stood outside a train station.
The image was dated two years after his supposed death.
May you like
On the back was one sentence.
SARAH, I TRIED TO COME HOME.
