Chapter 6 - MY BEST FRIEND
Mark didn't run.
That surprised me.
I asked him to meet Rebecca and me in a private conference room.
He arrived carrying coffee.
Then he saw the bank records.
His face collapsed.
“Where did you get those?”
“Claire.”
The cup stopped halfway to his mouth.
“Claire is alive?”
That reaction looked real.
I no longer trusted appearances.
“Did you authorize these payments?”
Mark sat down.
“Yes.”
One word.
Twenty-two years of friendship cracked.
He explained that Ethan had approached him eighteen months earlier with vendor contracts that appeared legitimate.
Vanessa vouched for Ethan.
Claire vouched for Vanessa.
Mark approved the first payments under delegated authority.
“Then I noticed invoices didn't match deliverables.”
“What did you do?”
“I stopped approving them.”
“When?”
“Fourteen months ago.”
Just before Erin Walsh died.
Mark said he confronted Ethan.
Ethan threatened to expose something unrelated.
Mark had borrowed company funds temporarily during a divorce to cover personal legal expenses.
He replaced the money.
Still misconduct.
Still enough to destroy his career.
So he stayed quiet.
Shame again.
The most efficient weapon in Vanessa's arsenal.
“Did you help Claire?”
Mark nodded.
“She came to me after she found the Hawthorne account.”
My anger rose.
“You knew she was investigating?”
“Yes.”
“And you never told me?”
“She made me promise.”
“She's been missing thirteen months.”
“I thought she was dead.”
I leaned forward.
“No. You thought she left.”
Mark looked at Rebecca.
Then at me.
“No, Daniel.”
The room went silent.
“I knew about the death certificate.”
My pulse hammered.
Mark had received a copy anonymously days after Claire disappeared.
He assumed whoever sent it was threatening him.
Then Vanessa told him Claire had run away.
Two versions.
Exactly as Rebecca predicted.
“Why didn't you show me?”
“Because the sender included another document.”
He opened an encrypted folder on his laptop.
A photograph of Noah leaving school.
Taken from across the street.
Underneath:
KEEP DANIEL OUT OF IT.
My anger vanished.
Mark had believed my children were being watched.
That didn't excuse his silence.
But it explained it.
Then he gave us something Claire apparently never had.
An email Ethan accidentally copied him on.
Recipient:
Vanessa.
Subject:
E.C. solved. C.C. next.
E.C.
Erin Cole?
No.
Erin Walsh.
The initials didn't fit.
Rebecca looked again.
“What was Erin's middle name?”
We checked.
Erin Claire Walsh.
E.C.W.
Not E.C.
Then Mark whispered:
“Claire's initials before she married Daniel were C.E.H.”
We had been assuming “C.C.” meant Claire Carter.
Maybe it didn't.
Rebecca searched Ethan's corporate records.
One company appeared repeatedly.
Carter Capital.
C.C.
The email wasn't necessarily about killing Claire.
It might have been about money.
Once again, the darkest interpretation wasn't automatically the right one.
But Mark's next sentence was worse.
“Daniel, Claire didn't hide because Vanessa threatened her.”
“Then why?”
May you like
“Because somebody threatened Lily.”
📖 Claire had sacrificed thirteen months with her children because she believed Lily was in danger, and the threat came from a place I had never thought to examine. 👇
