Chapter 9 - Linda's First TheftLinda had been stealing from her son for six years.
Not millions.
Not at first.
The first amount was $8,200.
Then $12,000.
Then another $6,500.
Small fraudulent reimbursements disguised among ordinary company expenses.
Daniel had never noticed.
Why would he?
His mother had helped him launch the company.
He trusted her more than anyone.
The letter explained that Linda had developed a gambling problem after Daniel's father died.
Casinos first.
Then online betting.
Debt followed.
She stole to cover the losses.
Then stole more to replace what she'd stolen.
The cycle continued until she owed nearly $300,000 to lenders and had removed more than twice that from Daniel's company.
Wade discovered the fraud.
Instead of reporting her, he offered help.
At a price.
Linda began feeding him information about Daniel's business.
Wade used that information to create sophisticated false invoices.
Linda approved what she could.
Forged what she couldn't.
The scheme grew.
So did the affair.
Sarah read the sentence twice.
Wade made me feel wanted when I hated myself most.
She had no sympathy.
Not anymore.
Daniel sat beside her in stunned silence.
“The affair wasn't the secret,” Sarah said.
“The money was.”
Ortiz nodded.
“And Wade had leverage.”
“But Linda participated willingly.”
“According to this letter, yes.”
Daniel took the page back.
Near the end, Linda had written:
I told myself I was protecting you by keeping Wade satisfied. That was another lie.
Sarah thought of Emma beneath the soil.
Linda had apparently built her entire life from lies she renamed protection.
The letter ended abruptly.
There was no confession about Emma.
It had been written before the kidnapping.
“Why leave this in a storage unit?” Daniel asked.
“Insurance,” Ortiz said. “If Wade turned on her.”
Sarah remembered Wade's words.
I was protecting her.
Maybe both had collected leverage on the other.
Criminal intimacy held together by mutual destruction.
At 8:30 that morning, police located Wade's SUV.
Abandoned behind a closed restaurant near Kentucky Lake.
No Wade.
No Linda.
The red drive was gone.
There was blood on the passenger seat.
Testing would take time.
Sarah didn't allow herself to imagine whose it was.
Then Emma woke with another memory.
“Grandma had a bag.”
“What bag?”
“At the hole.”
Sarah leaned closer.
“What kind?”
“A grocery bag.”
“Do you know what was inside?”
Emma shook her head.
“She put something under the dirt before they put me there.”
Ortiz was called.
Crime-scene investigators returned to the yard.
The rain had destroyed much of the original scene, but they carefully excavated around the shallow depression.
Three feet from where Emma had emerged, a technician found plastic.
Inside was a small metal cash box.
Locked.
Daniel recognized it immediately.
“That belonged to my dad.”
Sarah frowned.
“Why would Linda bury it there?”
The lock was cut.
Inside were old photographs, financial papers, and a notebook.
Not modern company records.
These documents dated back more than twenty years.
Daniel stared at the first photograph.
His father, Robert Miller, stood beside a much younger Wade Bennett.
Sarah looked at him.
“They knew each other?”
“I didn't know.”
The notebook belonged to Robert.
Page after page documented business meetings with Wade.
Loans.
Properties.
Payments.
Then accusations.
Fraud.
Kickbacks.
Threats.
Daniel's father had discovered that Wade was running fraudulent construction invoices decades earlier.
The same scheme.
Different company.
The final pages became personal.
Wade has approached Linda again.
I told her to stay away from him.
Sarah looked up.
“Again?”
Daniel turned the page.
The next entry was dated nineteen years earlier.
I finally understand. It never stopped.
Daniel went pale.
“What never stopped?”
Ortiz continued reading silently.
Then handed him the notebook.
Daniel read.
His mouth opened.
No sound came out.
Sarah took it from him.
Robert had written:
Linda swears Daniel is mine.
I want to believe her.
But Wade says he has proof otherwise.
Sarah stared at the page.
Then at Daniel.
“No.”
Daniel stood so quickly his chair fell backward.
“No.”
Ortiz remained calm.
“We don't know whether any of this is true.”
Daniel walked to the window.
His entire childhood had just shifted beneath him.
Sarah returned to the notebook.
Robert's last entry was written six weeks before his death.
I have the DNA results.
Wade lied.
Daniel is my son.
But now I know what Linda did, and I know why Wade will never leave us alone.
The next page had been torn out.
Someone had removed whatever Robert wrote afterward.
Sarah stared at the ragged edge.
The missing page wasn't in the box.
But another object was.
A photograph of Linda and Wade kissing.
Dated twenty years earlier.
Their affair wasn't recent.
It had begun before Emma was born.
Before Sarah met Daniel.
Before Daniel finished high school.
Maybe before almost everything Linda had ever told her son.
Daniel looked at the photograph.
His voice was hollow.
“How long has my mother been lying to me?”
Ortiz's phone rang.
She answered.
Listened.
Then looked directly at Daniel.
“We may get to ask her.”
His head lifted.
“They found Linda?”
Ortiz nodded.
“She's walking into the police station right now.”
“Where's Wade?”
“She says she doesn't know.”
Sarah stood.
“Is she surrendering?”
Ortiz's expression was unreadable.
“She says she wants immunity.”
Sarah almost laughed.
“For what?”
May you like
Ortiz answered softly.
“For telling us where Wade plans to take Daniel tonight.”
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