CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 3
The First Lie
Daniel ran into the hallway.
A shadow moved beyond the corner.
He followed it through the west wing, past covered furniture and portraits of dead Brooks relatives. The intruder reached a service staircase and disappeared below.
Daniel descended two steps at a time.
He entered the kitchen just as the rear door slammed shut.
Outside, a black sedan accelerated through the staff entrance.
Daniel caught only the last three digits of the license plate.
Natalie arrived behind him.
“Who was it?”
“I don’t know.”
“You think they heard the video?”
“They knew we were watching it.”
Daniel locked the rear door.
When they returned to the screening room, the computer had restarted.
The USB was gone.
Natalie stared at the empty port.
“They took it.”
Daniel checked the desk, the floor, and the shelves.
Nothing.
Then he remembered Eleanor’s calm surrender.
“She gave us a copy.”
Natalie looked confused.
“What?”
“The real USB was never encrypted. She wanted us to open this one so someone could hear the first file.”
“Why?”
Daniel replayed Richard’s words in his mind.
You are not my biological son.
Your real father is alive.
“He wanted me to know,” Daniel said. “Someone else wanted to know how much Dad had recorded.”
Natalie sat in one of the velvet seats.
“Do you believe him?”
“I don’t know.”
“You and Dad look alike.”
“So do strangers.”
“Mom never said anything.”
Daniel looked at her.
“You remember Mom?”
Natalie had been four when Margaret Brooks disappeared. Daniel had been eight.
“Pieces,” she said. “Her perfume. The blue dress she wore at Christmas. The way she played piano.”
Daniel remembered more.
His mother crying in the laundry room.
Richard shouting behind a locked office door.
A suitcase near the garage.
Then nothing.
Richard told the children Margaret had left the family.
Within a year, the Brooks name removed her from photographs, holiday stories, and conversation.
Daniel had stopped calling Richard “Dad” on the day she disappeared.
The password had not been sentimental.
It marked the beginning of the lie.
Samuel Levin called.
Richard had awakened.
Daniel and Natalie returned to the hospital immediately.
Richard looked smaller in the bed. His left shoulder was immobilized. Purple bruising spread along his face.
Daniel stood at the foot of the bed.
“Who is my father?”
Richard looked at Natalie.
“Leave us.”
“No,” she said.
“This concerns Daniel.”
“It concerns our mother.”
Richard closed his eyes.
“She was not your mother, Natalie.”
The room went silent.
Natalie stared at him.
“What did you say?”
“Margaret gave birth to Daniel. Your mother was someone else.”
Natalie stepped backward.
Richard continued before she could interrupt.
“Her name was Laura Bennett. She died when you were two. Margaret raised you afterward.”
Natalie shook her head.
“You’re lying.”
“I wish I were.”
Daniel moved closer.
“Why?”
“Because Laura’s family wanted custody. Margaret loved you. She convinced them you were safer with us.”
“This family solves everything by stealing children?” Daniel asked.
Richard accepted the accusation.
“Yes.”
“Who is my father?”
Richard looked toward the window.
“Victor Hale.”
Daniel knew the name.
Everyone in Los Angeles did.
Victor Hale had built one of the most powerful private intelligence companies in America. He advised governments, billionaires, and political campaigns. Officially, he died in a plane crash twenty-seven years earlier.
“Victor Hale is dead.”
“No,” Richard said. “The man on that plane was his business partner.”
Daniel felt anger returning.
“You expect me to believe a dead spy is my father?”
“Victor and Margaret had an affair before she married me. She became pregnant. He refused to leave his wife. I agreed to raise you as my own.”
“Why?”
“Because I loved her.”
The answer sounded too simple.
Daniel leaned over the bed.
“Where is he?”
“I don’t know.”
“You said he’s been watching me.”
“He communicates through intermediaries.”
“Like the person who sent the bank statement?”
Richard nodded.
“Why now?”
“Because Emily found him.”
Daniel stopped breathing.
Richard’s voice weakened.
“Emily was investigating your mother’s disappearance. She discovered that Margaret had not abandoned us.”
“What happened to her?”
“She tried to expose Victor.”
“And he killed her?”
“I don’t know.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It’s the only honest one I have.”
Daniel slammed his hand against the bed rail.
“You created evidence that made me think you killed my wife.”
“I needed Victor to believe you suspected me.”
“Why?”
“Because hatred kept you away from the investigation.”
“You destroyed me to protect me?”
Richard’s eyes filled with pain.
“Yes.”
Daniel stepped away.
The explanation was monstrous.
It was also exactly the kind of sacrifice Richard would call love.
Natalie folded her arms.
“What was on the rest of the USB?”
“Evidence Emily collected. Names. Payments. Recorded conversations.”
“Where is the original?”
Richard looked toward Daniel.
“In the mansion.”
“We searched.”
“You searched the room I wanted people to find.”
Daniel understood.
“The screening room was bait.”
Richard nodded.
“The original is hidden where Margaret left her final message.”
Daniel felt cold.
“Where?”
Richard’s gaze moved to the scar on Daniel’s right hand.
Daniel had received it at age eight after breaking the glass door of the mansion’s greenhouse the night his mother disappeared.
“The greenhouse,” he said.
Richard closed his eyes.
Before Daniel could ask more, the heart monitor began beeping rapidly.
Nurses entered and ordered them out.
As Daniel stepped into the corridor, Samuel Levin approached with a sealed envelope.
“This was delivered for you.”
There was no return address.
Inside was a recent photograph.
It showed Richard lying unconscious in his hospital bed.
The picture had been taken less than an hour earlier.
On the back, someone had written:
Your father survived the stairs.
He will not survive the truth.
