Chapter 5 - Rachel
Daniel returned home with a single question.
How do you fake the death of someone’s wife without them knowing?
The answer was ugly.
You don’t fake the funeral.
You manipulate the identity.
Rachel Carter had been Daniel’s first wife and Lily’s mother.
When Lily was four months old, Rachel left for Boston to visit her sister. On the drive home, Daniel received a call from Margaret.
There had been an accident.
The car burned.
Identification had supposedly been made through dental records.
Daniel had been too destroyed to question anything.
The funeral used a closed casket.
Margaret handled arrangements.
Vanessa, then a family friend, became the person who helped Daniel through his grief.
Eight months later, they married.
Now Raymond obtained the original Massachusetts accident report.
The dead driver had not been Rachel.
The woman was unidentified for twelve days before being identified as another missing person.
Rachel Carter’s name appeared nowhere.
Daniel felt his knees weaken.
“What about the death certificate I received?”
Raymond placed it beside the report.
“Forgery.”
Daniel stared at the document he had kept for two years.
His grief had been built on paper someone manufactured.
“Find Rachel.”
Raymond started with banking records.
Nothing.
Passport.
Nothing.
Medical insurance.
Nothing.
Then Emily remembered Rachel had a college friend named Jennifer Pike.
Jennifer lived in Maine.
When Daniel called her, she went silent.
“I can’t talk to you.”
“Jennifer, I think Rachel may be alive.”
Another silence.
Then Jennifer whispered, “You really don’t know.”
Daniel gripped the phone.
“Know what?”
“Rachel didn’t die.”
His entire body went cold.
Jennifer began crying.
“She ran.”
“From me?”
“No.”
“Then from whom?”
“Your mother.”
Daniel closed his eyes.
Jennifer explained that Rachel had discovered Margaret moving money from Carter charitable accounts through connected vendors. She told Thomas. Thomas began changing the estate.
Then Rachel started receiving threats.
One night, someone entered Lily’s nursery while Rachel slept.
Nothing was stolen.
But a note was placed inside the crib.
Sign what Margaret wants, or next time the baby leaves with us.
Rachel panicked.
Thomas helped her disappear temporarily while he prepared legal protections.
Then Thomas died.
Margaret told Daniel Rachel had died.
Rachel, meanwhile, received a message supposedly from Daniel telling her never to return and threatening to take Lily permanently if she tried.
Each believed the other had abandoned them.
Daniel pressed a hand over his mouth.
Two years stolen.
Lily’s mother alive.
His father dead.
And Margaret standing at the center of everything.
“Where is Rachel?” he whispered.
Jennifer hesitated.
“She’s been waiting for proof that it was safe to come back.”
May you like
Daniel looked toward the hallway where Lily slept.
“Tell her it is.”
