Chapter 10 - A Witness with Two Masters
Cross disappeared before police could serve the next warrant.
His rural house stood empty, and the security camera had been disabled.
Blake blamed himself for trusting him.
Darlene reminded him that a useful witness could still be a liar.
“People don't become reliable merely because they know secrets,” she said.
Naomi recovered a copy of the ledger and had a document examiner inspect it.
The older entries appeared authentic.
The photograph of Blake had been added years later.
Someone had kept tracking him long after the adoption.
An investigator identified several accounts paying Cross for years.
One was tied to Julian.
Another led to an unknown foundation called Halcyon.
The funds were distributed through multiple intermediaries, and no one yet knew who controlled the foundation.
Darlene met Oakridge's independent directors and disclosed that the company faced serious questions about a former subsidiary's research practices.
She refused to hide behind a public relations statement.
“We may have patients who were harmed,” she said.
“We owe them the truth even if that truth costs us.”
One director demanded she step aside.
Another asked whether Blake had compromised her judgment.
Darlene answered coldly.
“My judgment was compromised when I trusted the wrong people for twenty years.”
She authorized an outside review and temporary restrictions on executives implicated in the record trail.
The decision enraged several shareholders, but it stopped internal records from being quietly destroyed.
At the hospital Abigail had a difficult breathing episode.
Her clinicians treated it promptly, and she recovered.
Blake sat beside her bed long after the monitors settled.
“Daddy, why did that lady on television say you lied?”
“Because some people are frightened of what we're finding.”
“Are you frightened?”
“Yes.”
She squeezed his finger.
“Then we can be scared together.”
The next morning the genetic laboratory reported a preliminary result requiring confirmatory testing.
The data strongly supported a parent-child relationship between Darlene and Blake.
Darlene read the report, then laid it facedown.
Blake stared at the ceiling.
Neither knew what to say.
A detective called before they could find the words.
Leonard Cross had been discovered alive in a roadside motel.
He had been drugged and left a message on the mirror in red lipstick.
THE MOTHER GETS HER SON.
THE FATHER GETS HIS GRANDDAUGHTER.
Darlene went white.
May you like
Thomas was alive, and someone wanted them to know it.
