Chapter 11 - Why Preston Hated the WhitmoresPreston called again ten minutes later.
This time Detective Bennett recorded it.
Victoria answered.
“What happened to Adam?”
A pause.
“You finally care.”
“I didn't know he existed.”
“Your father did.”
“So tell me.”
Preston's breathing sounded heavy.
He was moving.
“My father spent thirty years telling me Charles Whitmore took my brother.”
Evelyn frowned.
“That isn't what happened.”
“You were seven.”
“I found him.”
“And then?”
“My father called police.”
“That's the story.”
“What do you believe?”
Silence.
Preston finally answered.
“Adam found evidence my father had been stealing money.”
The hallway became still.
“Hale money?” Victoria asked.
“Investor money. Hotel money. Anyone's money.”
Preston's father, Richard Hale, had run a small investment company.
According to Preston, Adam accidentally found account records.
He threatened to tell their mother.
Richard panicked.
The first kidnapping wasn't a stranger abduction.
Richard's own employee took Adam and hid him near Lake Geneva while Richard tried to recover the evidence.
Evelyn found him.
Charles intervened.
Police returned Adam home.
“Then why did he disappear again?”
Preston's voice changed.
“Because someone came for him six months later.”
“Your father?”
“No.”
“How do you know?”
“Because my father was with me when Adam vanished.”
Detective Bennett wrote quickly.
“Who do you think took him?”
“Charles.”
Evelyn shook her head.
“No.”
“My father told me Charles needed Adam quiet.”
“Why?”
“Because Charles took the account records.”
The numbers inside the whistle.
Evelyn finally understood.
Adam had hidden evidence inside his toy.
Charles kept the whistle without knowing what it contained until later.
Maybe he discovered the paper years afterward.
“Dad wouldn't kidnap a child.”
“You didn't know your father.”
“I knew him better than you.”
Preston laughed bitterly.
“Did you know he paid my father two hundred thousand dollars after Adam disappeared?”
Silence.
Diane looked stunned.
“No.”
Preston continued.
“Did you know he visited our house the week after?”
Diane whispered:
“Charles traveled to Milwaukee.”
Everyone turned.
“You knew?”
“He said it was business.”
Preston heard.
“Ask Diane why her husband paid the man he supposedly suspected of kidnapping his own son.”
Evelyn looked at her mother.
Diane shook her head.
“I don't know.”
Preston continued.
“My father told me Charles bought Adam's silence. Then when Adam threatened to expose everyone, Charles removed him.”
“Your father lied to you,” Evelyn said.
“Maybe.”
The word surprised her.
Preston didn't sound certain anymore.
“Then why all this?” Victoria asked.
“Why marry me?”
“To get what Charles took.”
“The whistle?”
“I didn't know it was a whistle.”
“What did you know?”
“That your family had the account code.”
“Money?”
“Proof.”
“Of what?”
“My father built his fortune on stolen funds. Charles figured it out.”
Evelyn stared.
“And you wanted to expose your own father?”
“He's dead.”
Richard Hale had died twelve years earlier.
“Then why?”
“Because those accounts still exist.”
There it was.
Money.
Preston's revenge had always contained greed.
“How much?” Detective Bennett asked loudly enough for the phone to catch.
Preston went silent.
Then:
“Who is that?”
Victoria looked at the detective.
“Police.”
The line disconnected.
Forensics immediately began investigating the account numbers from Adam's whistle.
Thirty-year-old banking records would take time.
But Preston had said something important.
The accounts still existed.
If money remained, perhaps someone had continued using them.
Evelyn looked at Diane.
“Did Dad know?”
“I don't know.”
“Yes, you do.”
Diane's eyes filled with frustration.
“I told you everything.”
“No.”
“You always think I'm hiding something.”
“Because you usually are.”
Victoria stepped between them.
“Stop.”
Both sisters looked at her.
Victoria had spent her wedding night discovering her husband stole her necklace, framed her niece, lied about knowing her father, manipulated her family's debt, and perhaps married her for thirty-year-old evidence.
She deserved to be the most broken person in the room.
Instead she looked furious.
Focused.
“We find Preston.”
Detective Bennett nodded.
“We're trying.”
Victoria looked at Evelyn.
“Then we figure out what Dad actually did.”
Sophie lifted her hand.
Adults stared.
“What?” Evelyn asked.
“Can Buddy help?”
Martin smiled.
“He already did.”
Sophie looked serious.
“He knows Preston's smell.”
The detective considered it.
Buddy wasn't a trained tracking dog.
But Preston had left blood and torn fabric in the maintenance passage.
Martin suggested allowing Buddy to sniff the piece of tuxedo.
“Absolutely not,” Evelyn said.
Sophie frowned.
“Why?”
“Because Preston is dangerous.”
“I won't go.”
Evelyn hesitated.
Buddy could work with a security officer.
They tried.
The dog sniffed Preston's fabric.
Then moved down the corridor.
Slowly.
Nose to carpet.
Everyone followed at a distance.
Buddy reached the executive elevator.
Stopped.
Then turned away.
He headed toward the emergency staircase.
Down.
Twenty.
Nineteen.
Eighteen.
At seventeen, he barked.
Martin opened the stairwell door.
The floor contained hotel meeting rooms.
Empty at this hour.
Buddy moved toward one.
The Lincoln Room.
Door unlocked.
Inside, a chair had been knocked over.
A phone charger lay on the floor.
And Arthur Dean, Whitmore's missing finance director, sat bound behind a conference table.
Alive.
Terrified.
When Evelyn removed the cloth from his mouth, Arthur gasped one sentence.
“Preston isn't trying to escape.”
“What is he doing?”
May you like
Arthur looked toward Diane.
“He's going to empty the account tonight.”
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