Chapter 6 - What Susan Knew
Susan was alive.
When officers reached the house, they found her in the kitchen.
Dad was gone.
So was his passport.
The safe in his office stood open.
Cash missing.
Two handguns missing.
That changed everything.
Detective Ortiz stopped calling him a person of interest.
A warrant was issued.
Airports were alerted.
His photograph went to state police.
For the first time, Richard Henderson was officially running.
Susan agreed to speak with investigators.
Her attorney sat beside her.
Tyler wanted to attend.
He wasn't allowed.
I wasn't either.
But Susan agreed to let Ortiz later summarize the portions directly related to me.
The truth arrived in pieces.
Susan had met Dad when she was twenty-three.
She worked as a bookkeeper for his first construction employer.
Mom knew her.
They were not friends.
Dad and Susan began an affair months before Mom decided to leave.
Susan claimed she believed Dad was already separated.
Later, she learned that wasn't true.
She stayed anyway.
After Mom died, Dad told Susan there was a trust.
He said the money would be “wasted” if locked away for a child.
He also said he needed capital to raise me properly.
Susan helped prepare financial statements.
She knew money moved from the trust.
She claimed she believed Dad had legal authority.
Then came the forged documents.
Susan admitted she drove Dad to Franklin Pike’s office.
She knew Mom was dead.
She knew the documents were being notarized after death.
She claimed she did not know the signatures were forged.
Nobody believed that completely.
But her confession gave investigators a timeline.
It also gave them another name.
Gerald Mercer.
Dad’s accountant.
Mercer created companies used to receive trust funds.
Some no longer existed.
Others still held assets.
The missing money had not all vanished.
Millions had grown elsewhere.
Dad had invested part of my stolen inheritance.
And because he had done well with some investments, the assets tied to those transfers might now be worth more than the original amounts.
The district attorney began preparing seizure orders.
The lake house.
Two rental properties.
Dad’s construction-company shares.
Susan’s store building.
Investment accounts.
Vehicles.
A warehouse.
I listened to the list without feeling rich.
Money had become evidence.
Every dollar had a memory attached.
Every property represented something Dad had bought while telling me I deserved nothing.
Then Detective Ortiz told me the part Susan almost refused to discuss.
Grandma.
Susan had followed her to the bank.
Twice.
Dad asked her to.
They knew Grandma had started gathering records.
They did not know about the safe-deposit box.
The photograph at the hotel had been taken weeks earlier because Dad wanted proof of Grandma’s movements.
Susan admitted placing it beneath my door.
“Why?” I asked.
Ortiz looked tired.
“She says Richard told her frightening you might make you surrender the passbook.”
“She came to my hotel?”
“Yes.”
“How did she find us?”
“Tyler’s location-sharing app.”
Tyler turned pale.
He had forgotten his mother could see his phone location through an old family account.
That explained everything.
Susan followed the dot.
Walked into the hotel.
Slid the photograph under my door.
And left.
“She threatened me.”
“Yes.”
“Is she being arrested?”
“She is likely facing charges.”
“Likely?”
“She is cooperating.”
I hated the word.
Cooperating sounded clean.
It sounded respectable.
Susan had laughed beside Grandma’s grave.
She had benefited from my money for years.
She had helped Dad scare an old dying woman.
Yet now cooperation might soften what happened to her.
Howard noticed my expression.
“Justice isn't always emotionally satisfying.”
“I don't want a speech.”
“I know.”
“I want her to feel what Grandma felt.”
Howard nodded.
“I know that too.”
That night Dad called me.
Unknown number.
I was in a police interview room when it happened.
Ortiz connected recording equipment.
Then nodded.
I answered.
“Hello?”
“Chloe.”
Dad sounded calm.
No traffic.
No wind.
No clue where he was.
“Where are you?”
“Doesn't matter.”
“The police are looking for you.”
“I’m aware.”
“You ran.”
“I left an unsafe situation.”
I nearly laughed.
“You were the unsafe situation.”
“Is that what Maggie told you?”
“No. That’s what you taught me.”
Silence.
Then:
“Susan is lying.”
“She confessed.”
“To save herself.”
“She says you forged Mom’s documents.”
“Laura wanted me to handle the money.”
“The trust says the opposite.”
“Your uncle wrote that.”
“Mom signed it.”
“She signed lots of things when she was upset.”
I gripped the phone.
“Did you love her?”
The question escaped before I could stop it.
Dad was silent.
Finally he said, “Once.”
“Did you cheat on her with Susan?”
“That has nothing to do with the money.”
“So yes.”
“Chloe, listen to me. I made mistakes.”
“You stole millions.”
“I invested money.”
“For yourself.”
“For the family.”
“I was the family.”
“You were a child.”
“It belonged to me.”
“That is not how trusts work.”
“I raised you.”
“So?”
His voice rose.
“So you think food was free? Clothes? School? A roof?”
“You don't get to invoice a child for being her father.”
That stopped him.
I had never spoken to him like that.
Not once.
He lowered his voice again.
“You’ve always been dramatic.”
There it was.
The word he used whenever my pain inconvenienced him.
“You’re making yourself a victim because you found some old paperwork.”
“Grandma recorded you.”
Silence.
Then a quiet curse.
I smiled for the first time.
“You didn't know about the recordings.”
“Maggie was vindictive.”
“You threatened her.”
“She threatened me.”
“She was eighty-one years old.”
“You don't understand what she did.”
“She protected me.”
“She turned you against your own father.”
“No.”
My voice became steady.
“You did that.”
Another silence.
Then he tried something new.
“You know Susan and Tyler lived off that money too.”
I looked at Ortiz.
She wrote something quickly.
Dad continued.
“If I go down, they go down.”
“Susan already turned on you.”
“She’ll say anything.”
“And Tyler gave police the paper you tried to burn.”
He inhaled sharply.
Maybe I shouldn't have said it.
Ortiz didn't stop me.
“You turned my son against me?”
“He ran from you.”
“He’s confused.”
“He’s scared of you.”
“He’s weak.”
There it was.
The father beneath the father.
Tyler wasn't useful anymore.
So now Tyler was weak.
“What do you want?” I asked.
Dad finally answered.
“The original trust.”
“No.”
“Give it to me.”
“No.”
“Chloe.”
“No.”
“You have no idea what happens if that document goes to court.”
“You go to prison?”
His voice became cold.
“You think this is funny?”
“No.”
“You think Maggie won?”
I looked at the evidence bag holding Grandma’s passbook.
“Yes.”
Dad laughed.
Then said something strange.
“She didn't tell you everything.”
My stomach tightened.
“What else is there?”
“She protected Laura too.”
“From what?”
He waited.
I could almost hear him smiling.
“Ask your precious uncle why your mother had that much money in the first place.”
The line disconnected.
Howard had been sitting behind the glass.
When I walked into the observation room, his face was white.
“What did he mean?”
Howard looked away.
“What did he mean?”
“Chloe—”
“No more secrets.”
He sat down.
I remained standing.
“Your mother’s trust was funded by several sources.”
“I know. Investments, insurance, settlement.”
Howard nodded.
“The settlement was the largest portion.”
“What settlement?”
He rubbed his forehead.
“When you were two, there was an accident at a manufacturing plant owned by our father.”
“My grandfather?”
“Yes.”
“A worker was killed.”
“What does that have to do with Mom?”
“The company was sued. During discovery, Laura found documents showing safety inspections had been falsified.”
I stared.
“She exposed her own father?”
“Yes.”
“He settled the case.”
“Yes.”
“Then why did Mom get money?”
“Because after the settlement, our father divided and sold the company. Laura received her share.”
“So Dad is trying to make that sound dirty.”
“Probably.”
I exhaled.
Then Howard added, “There is more.”
Of course there was.
“What?”
“Our father was furious Laura cooperated with the worker’s family. He cut her off.”
“Grandpa?”
“Yes.”
“She lost her family for telling the truth?”
“For several years.”
I thought of myself.
Standing in a bank while my father called me dramatic because I refused to protect his lies.
A pattern.
Not genetics.
A legacy of choices.
Howard said, “Laura believed doing the right thing mattered more than being welcome at Christmas.”
I almost smiled.
“Sounds like Grandma.”
“It sounds like you.”
Before I could answer, Ortiz entered.
“We found Richard’s truck.”
“Where?”
“Bus terminal parking lot.”
“Is he there?”
“No.”
“Cameras?”
“We’re checking.”
Her phone rang.
She answered.
Listened.
Her face tightened.
Then she looked directly at me.
“What?”
Ortiz ended the call.
“Your father didn't take a bus.”
“How do you know?”
“Because a traffic camera caught him leaving the terminal in another vehicle.”
“What vehicle?”
She showed me a still image.
Dad sat in the passenger seat of a dark sedan.
The driver was an older man.
I didn't recognize him.
Howard did.
He stood so quickly his chair fell backward.
“Gerald Mercer.”
Dad’s accountant.
The man who built the companies that swallowed my trust money.
Ortiz zoomed in.
The car was heading north.
Toward Oakfield.
Toward Grandma’s house.
And suddenly I understood.
Dad wasn't running away.
He was going back for something.
May you like
Something Grandma had hidden.
Something even the safe-deposit box had not contained.
