Chapter 5 - The Woman Who Stole My Wife’s Name
My mother had been kidnapped from a hospital full of cameras.
That told me two things.
First, whoever took her had help.
Second, this conspiracy was much larger than Rebecca and Marcus.
Detective Ruiz locked down the hospital.
Security footage showed three people dressed as patient transport staff moving Mom through a restricted elevator.
Two men.
One woman.
The woman never turned toward the camera.
She didn’t need to.
I recognized the walk.
Rebecca.
My wife had taken my mother.
Again.
Ruiz paused the footage.
“Vehicle?”
“Ambulance.”
“Real?”
“Stolen from a private transport company forty minutes earlier.”
“Tracking?”
“Disabled.”
Grace sat beside me.
She looked exhausted but refused to leave.
“This is my fault.”
I turned.
“No.”
“If I hadn’t told you about the box—”
“They already knew about the box.”
“But—”
“Grace.”
She looked at me.
“You protected my mother when I wasn’t here. You got hurt doing it. Nothing they do after that belongs to you.”
Her eyes filled.
She nodded.
At noon, Marcus Holloway came out of surgery.
David’s shotgun blast had missed his heart.
Bad luck for him.
Useful for us.
Ruiz had him transported under armed guard.
At 1:30, he asked to speak with me.
“No,” Ruiz said.
“Why?”
“He’s trying to manipulate you.”
“So let him try.”
“You are not law enforcement.”
“He knows where Mom is.”
“He claims he knows something.”
“That’s enough.”
She sighed.
Five minutes later, I entered his room.
Marcus looked terrible.
Tubes.
Bandages.
Gray skin.
But his smile survived.
“Brother-in-law.”
“Don’t.”
He coughed.
“Fair.”
“Where is my mother?”
“Rebecca has her.”
“I know.”
“No. You think you know.”
He shifted painfully.
“Rebecca isn’t in charge.”
“David?”
Marcus laughed weakly.
“David thinks he is.”
“Who?”
“Samuel.”
I stared at him.
“Your father is dead.”
“That’s what everyone thought about yours.”
My pulse changed.
“No.”
Marcus watched my face.
“Interesting, isn’t it? Dead fathers everywhere.”
“When did you last see Samuel?”
“Six days ago.”
I sat back.
Dad had told me Samuel Holloway was shot four years earlier.
Another lie.
“Where?”
Marcus smiled.
“Deal.”
“You’re in custody for kidnapping, fraud, attempted murder—”
“I didn’t try to kill anybody.”
“You held a gun to Grace’s head.”
“Technically David did more shooting.”
I leaned forward.
“My mother is seventy-eight years old. She has a fractured wrist, dehydration, and complications from a stroke. If she dies while you play games, I will spend every dollar I have making sure you never see daylight again.”
His smile faded.
“You sound like Robert.”
“Where is she?”
“Samuel has a ranch outside Mineral Wells.”
Ruiz entered immediately.
She had been listening.
“Address.”
Marcus looked at her.
“Protection first.”
“From who?”
“My sister.”
“Rebecca?”
Marcus shook his head.
Then said something that froze both of us.
“Rebecca isn’t my sister.”
I stared at him.
“What?”
“Not biologically.”
“David said he wasn’t her brother either.”
“David lies.”
“So do you.”
“True.”
Marcus gave a painful grin.
“But about different things.”
He told us the truth in pieces.
Or what he claimed was truth.
Samuel Holloway had one biological child.
Marcus.
Rebecca was taken in at twelve after her mother died.
Her real surname was not Holloway.
She became Samuel’s protégé.
“She was smarter than all of us,” Marcus said.
“Smarter at what?”
“Becoming people.”
Identity theft.
Forgery.
Behavior.
Accent.
History.
Rebecca could learn a person’s life and inhabit it.
Allison Bennett had been one of several identities.
“How many?” Ruiz asked.
Marcus closed his eyes.
“I know of four.”
My stomach turned.
“Where is the real Allison?”
“I don’t know.”
“Dead?”
“Probably.”
I stood.
Marcus opened his eyes.
“She didn’t kill Allison.”
I stopped.
“How do you know?”
“Because I did.”
Silence.
Grace, standing behind the observation glass, covered her mouth.
I turned slowly.
“Say that again.”
Marcus looked at Ruiz.
“I want a lawyer before I say anything else.”
I nearly crossed the room.
Ruiz blocked me.
“Ryder.”
“He killed her.”
“And now he’s talking.”
“He just confessed.”
“Which is exactly why you need to leave.”
I left.
But before the door closed, Marcus called after me.
“Ryder.”
I looked back.
“Rebecca loved you.”
I stared at him.
He smiled faintly.
“That’s the part that ruined everything.”
At 3:10 p.m., police raided Samuel Holloway’s ranch.
Empty.
But someone had been there recently.
Medical packaging matching my mother’s prescriptions was found in a trash bin.
A hospital blanket lay in one room.
The bed was warm.
They had missed them by less than an hour.
On the dining table was an envelope.
RYDER.
Inside was a letter from Rebecca.
Not typed.
Handwritten.
Ryder,
You will not believe anything I say, and you shouldn’t.
I hurt your mother.
I lied to you.
I participated in things I cannot undo.
But if Samuel gets what he wants, Eleanor dies.
I took her because David’s people were coming for her.
Your mother is alive.
For now.
Samuel wants Robert.
Robert wants the evidence.
David wants the helium rights.
Marcus wants to survive.
And you are standing in the middle because your father made the same mistake you did.
He believed he could protect his family by keeping them ignorant.
He couldn’t.
Neither could you.
If you want Eleanor alive, find the real Allison Bennett.
Rebecca
I read it three times.
Ruiz read it once.
“She says find Allison.”
“Marcus says he killed her.”
“Maybe he thinks he did.”
I remembered the storage box.
The newspaper clipping.
Missing woman.
No body.
Maybe Rebecca had built her identity around the assumption Allison was dead.
Maybe that assumption was wrong.
We began with old records.
The real Allison Bennett disappeared nine years earlier after leaving Galveston.
Her car was found near the coast.
Blood in the trunk.
No body.
Marcus became a suspect briefly but had an alibi.
The case went cold.
Then Ruiz found something.
Three weeks after Allison disappeared, an unidentified woman was admitted to a hospital in Louisiana after being struck by a truck.
Severe head trauma.
No identification.
Memory loss.
She was transferred months later into a long-term neurological facility.
Age matched.
Height matched.
Eye color matched.
The facility had closed six years ago.
Patients were relocated.
We followed the records.
Louisiana.
Mississippi.
Arkansas.
Finally Oklahoma.
A residential neurological center outside Tulsa.
The patient’s current name was Jane Bell.
At 7:40 the next morning, Ruiz and I walked into the facility.
A nurse led us to a garden.
A woman sat beneath a tree.
Blonde hair streaked with gray.
Thin.
Mid-thirties.
She was drawing birds in a notebook.
“Jane?” the nurse said.
The woman looked up.
I had studied dozens of photographs of Allison Bennett.
This woman was older.
Scarred.
But it was her.
My knees nearly weakened.
Ruiz sat across from her.
“My name is Elena.”
The woman smiled politely.
“We’d like to ask you some questions.”
“Okay.”
“Do you know the name Allison?”
Her pencil stopped.
For several seconds, she said nothing.
Then she whispered, “That’s not safe.”
Ruiz and I exchanged a look.
“Why?”
The woman looked toward the building.
“He told me not to say it.”
“Who?”
“The man with the ring.”
“What ring?”
She drew a circle.
Inside it, a letter H.
Holloway.
“Marcus?”
Her face tightened.
“No.”
“Samuel?”
She began shaking.
The nurse stepped closer.
“It’s okay, Jane.”
The woman suddenly grabbed my wrist.
Her eyes fixed on mine.
“Robert.”
I froze.
“My father?”
She stared at me.
“You have Robert’s eyes.”
“You knew him.”
Tears appeared.
“He tried to help me.”
“What happened?”
“The fire.”
“What fire?”
“The plane.”
My heart pounded.
“Were you on my father’s plane?”
She nodded.
Everything inside me stopped.
The body identified as Robert Mercer.
The plane crash.
The forged dental records.
A missing woman.
“Allison.”
She looked at me.
“Were you on the plane when it crashed?”
“No.”
“Who was?”
Her grip tightened.
“Samuel.”
“No. Samuel survived.”
She shook her head violently.
“No. Not Samuel.”
“Then who?”
“His brother.”
I didn’t know Samuel had a brother.
Ruiz leaned forward.
“What was his name?”
Allison whispered, “Thomas.”
Dad had never mentioned Thomas Holloway.
“What happened before the crash?”
Allison squeezed her eyes shut.
“Robert found the files.”
“What files?”
“The list.”
“We have the list.”
“No.”
She looked at me.
“Not that list.”
“What list?”
“The children.”
The garden seemed to go silent.
“What children?”
Allison began crying.
“Names. Social Security numbers. Birth certificates.”
Identity theft.
But children?
Ruiz asked carefully, “What were they doing with them?”
“Building people.”
My stomach turned.
“False identities?”
She nodded.
“For children who didn’t exist.”
“Why?”
“Bank accounts. corporations. trusts.”
“How many?”
“Hundreds.”
I stared at her.
The Holloways had been creating synthetic identities for decades.
Financial ghosts.
Companies owned by people who technically existed but had never lived.
Perfect for hiding money.
Allison suddenly looked at me.
“Rebecca took one.”
“One identity?”
She nodded.
“Mine.”
“Why?”
“Because Samuel told her to.”
“Why me?”
Allison frowned.
“I don’t understand.”
“Why did Rebecca marry me?”
Her face changed.
“Oh.”
“What?”
She touched my cheek.
“You don’t know.”
“Know what?”
“Rebecca didn’t meet you at that dinner.”
“I know it was probably planned.”
“No.”
She shook her head.
“She met you before.”
“When?”
“You were children.”
I stared at her.
“What are you talking about?”
“Robert brought you to Holloway Ranch.”
A memory flickered.
A summer.
Horses.
A girl sitting alone near a fence.
Dark blonde hair.
A cut on her knee.
I had been maybe twelve.
I had forgotten.
Allison whispered, “Rebecca remembered you.”
My phone rang.
Unknown number.
I answered.
Rebecca’s voice.
“Did you find her?”
I looked at Allison.
“Yes.”
Rebecca went silent.
For the first time, I heard her cry.
Not loudly.
One breath.
Then another.
“She’s alive.”
“Yes.”
“Oh God.”
“Where’s my mother?”
“She’s with me.”
“Put her on.”
A pause.
Then Mom’s voice.
“Ryder?”
I stood so quickly my chair fell.
“Mom.”
“I’m okay.”
“Are you hurt?”
“No.”
“Where are you?”
Rebecca took the phone.
“Listen carefully. Samuel knows Allison is alive now.”
“How?”
“Because someone inside the police department told him where you went.”
I looked at Ruiz.
Her face hardened.
“We’re compromised.”
“Yes.”
“Where are you?”
“I can’t tell you.”
“Rebecca.”
“If Samuel finds us, your mother dies.”
“You expect me to trust you?”
“No.”
Her voice cracked.
“I expect you to hate me.”
A loud sound came through the phone.
Glass breaking.
Rebecca gasped.
Then gunfire.
“Rebecca!”
She shouted something to Mom.
The line filled with chaos.
Another gunshot.
Then Rebecca came back.
Breathing hard.
“They found us.”
“Where are you?”
“Ryder—”
“WHERE?”
A man’s voice sounded in the background.
Older.
Calm.
“Well.”
Rebecca stopped breathing.
The man continued.
“Robert Mercer’s boy.”
Samuel Holloway.
Rebecca whispered, “Run.”
The call ended.
Thirty seconds later, a photograph arrived.
My mother tied to a chair.
Rebecca on her knees beside her.
A gun pressed against Rebecca’s head.
And behind them stood a silver-haired man I had never seen.
Samuel Holloway.
Text appeared beneath the image.
May you like
BRING ROBERT.
OR BURY BOTH WOMEN.
