Chapter 6 - Miles Carter
The detective's name was Elena Ruiz, and she had the expression of someone who had learned long ago that wealthy people lied with better tailoring but no greater skill.
She asked the wedding guests to remain available for statements.
She asked the hotel to preserve every camera feed.
Miles Carter had always occupied an unusual place inside the Halston household.
He ate with staff but knew family secrets.
He called Richard sir but occasionally ignored orders when Adrian was involved.
When Adrian was sixteen and crashed a sports car into a stone wall, Miles reached the hospital before either parent.
He sat outside the emergency room until dawn and never mentioned that he had been crying when Adrian woke.
Victoria called it loyalty.
Richard called it professionalism.
Adrian had always called it Miles being Miles.
Now every protective gesture looked different.
If Miles suspected Adrian was Leah's child, he had spent years driving his own nephew through a life built on stolen identity.
That must have required a kind of discipline Ava could barely imagine.
It also required deception.
The pattern repeated until it became almost absurd.
Everyone claimed silence had protected Adrian.
Nobody had asked whether Adrian wanted protection purchased with his right to know himself.
Ava thought about her own years with Dominic absent and realized how easily she could have repeated the same mistake.
She had hidden Dominic's survival from Adrian because she feared what Richard would do if he learned.
Her reason was not evil.
The effect was still deception.
That realization made it harder to judge Miles cleanly and impossible to excuse him completely.
By the time Ruiz traced the prepaid phone, Ava no longer expected anyone connected to the case to be only one thing.
Then she asked Richard Halston whether he knew where Miles Carter was.
Richard answered too quickly.
"No."
Detective Ruiz looked at him.
"When did you last speak to him?"
"This afternoon."
"What time?"
"I don't remember."
Ava watched the detective note the answer.
Adrian still held her hand.
His grip was tight enough to hurt.
She did not pull away.
"He called me ten minutes ago."
Ruiz turned toward Adrian.
"Mr. Halston?"
Adrian held up his phone.
"Someone answered Miles's number and told me to ask my father what happened to the baby in 2000."
Ruiz's eyes sharpened.
"Can I see the call log?"
Adrian handed her the phone.
Richard stepped forward.
"My son is under tremendous stress."
Ruiz did not look at him.
"Your son can decide whether he wants to speak for himself."
Adrian almost smiled.
"Thank you."
Richard's jaw tightened.
The detective copied the number and returned the phone.
"Do you know whether Mr. Carter had any family?"
Adrian looked at Dominic.
Dominic answered.
"A younger sister named Leah."
Ruiz glanced up.
"Had?"
"She disappeared in 2000."
The detective's pen stopped.
"Disappeared where?"
"That's the problem."
Dominic looked at Richard.
"No one knows."
Ruiz followed the look.
"Was a report filed?"
"Yes."
"By whom?"
"Miles Carter."
Richard spoke over him.
"And it was investigated."
Dominic turned.
"For nine days."
"Because she left voluntarily."
"According to a letter typed on a Meridian office machine."
Ruiz looked interested now.
"You have a copy?"
Dominic's attorney answered.
"We do."
Richard laughed with contempt.
"Of course you do."
Ruiz finally looked at him.
"Mr. Halston, if you want to continue helping me, stop interrupting people who are giving me information."
Several guests looked down to hide smiles.
Richard noticed.
Ava could almost see his anger storing itself for later.
Ruiz asked the attorney to send the letter.
Then she turned to Ava.
"You are the bride?"
"Apparently."
Ruiz glanced at her cheek.
"Do you want to report an assault?"
Victoria inhaled sharply.
Ava looked at her.
The woman who had slapped her now looked suddenly less powerful with a detective standing ten feet away.
Ava could have said yes.
Part of her wanted to.
Instead, she shook her head.
"Not tonight."
Victoria exhaled.
Ava added one more sentence.
"But I want the security footage preserved."
Victoria's relief vanished.
Ruiz nodded.
"It already is."
Adrian squeezed Ava's hand once.
She could not tell whether it was gratitude or fear.
Ruiz took statements from Richard and Victoria separately.
That alone made Victoria panic.
"Why separately?"
"Because that is how interviews work."
"We have nothing to hide."
Ruiz gave her a neutral look.
"Then this should be easy."
Ava watched Victoria leave with an officer.
Richard was escorted toward the opposite side of the ballroom.
For the first time all night, Adrian stood without either parent near him.
He seemed younger.
Not twenty-six.
Not a groom.
Just a man whose entire childhood had become evidence.
"Do you want to sit down?"
He shook his head.
"If I sit down, I think I might not get back up."
Ava nodded.
"Then don't."
He looked at her.
"How long have you known about Leah Carter?"
"I heard her name for the first time tonight."
"Do you swear?"
The question hurt.
She answered anyway.
"Yes."
"How long have you known my parents were connected to your father's company?"
"Eleven months."
His face changed.
"Eleven months?"
"My father found me after my mother died, but he did not tell me everything."
"You said the man who raised you was your father."
"He was."
"And Dominic?"
Ava looked toward the man across the ballroom.
"He was a stranger with my eyes and a stack of documents."
Adrian's anger softened slightly.
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"Because the first thing he told me was that your father tried to kill him."
Adrian looked away.
"And you thought I would run to Richard."
"I didn't know what you would do."
"You were marrying me."
"I know."
"That should have meant you knew me."
Ava had no defense.
"You're right."
He stared at her.
"Stop agreeing with me."
"Why?"
"Because I want to be angry at you without feeling like I'm kicking someone who already knows she did something wrong."
Ava almost laughed despite everything.
"I can argue if it helps."
"It doesn't."
He looked at the wedding cake.
The top tier still held a sugar sculpture of their initials intertwined.
"This was supposed to be the easiest day of our lives."
"No wedding is the easiest day of anyone's life."
"Normal people argue about flowers."
"We did argue about flowers."
A faint smile touched his mouth.
Then it disappeared.
"And now I may not be who I thought I was."
Ava wanted to tell him identity was more than a name on a birth certificate.
It sounded too simple for the pain on his face.
Before she could say anything, Dominic approached.
Adrian immediately stiffened.
"What now?"
Dominic held out a small envelope.
"Miles sent this to me three weeks ago."
Ava's head snapped toward him.
"Three weeks?"
"I received it three weeks ago."
"And you didn't tell me?"
"I did not know whether it was genuine."
Adrian stared at the envelope.
"What is it?"
"A storage key."
Dominic showed them a brass key with a numbered tag.
"And an address."
Ava read the handwritten line.
It was a self-storage facility thirty miles outside the city.
Adrian looked at Dominic.
"Why would Miles send it to you?"
"Because we had been communicating."
Ava felt another betrayal land.
"You knew Miles?"
"Not well."
"You were talking to Richard's driver behind everyone's back."
Dominic's eyes hardened.
"I was trying to find out what happened to Leah."
Adrian looked at the key.
"And you didn't think the police should have this?"
Dominic glanced toward Detective Ruiz.
"Until tonight, I did not know whether Miles could be trusted."
"And now?"
"Now his truck is burned and there is blood in the cab."
Adrian reached for the key.
Dominic pulled it back.
"No."
"Give it to me."
"The police go first."
"You just spent twenty-six years operating outside the police."
Dominic's expression tightened.
"And I learned why that was a mistake."
Ava looked at him.
She had never heard him admit that before.
Detective Ruiz returned before Adrian could argue.
Dominic handed her the key and explained.
Ruiz stared at him for several seconds.
"You understand that withholding potential evidence can become a problem."
"I do."
"Any other surprises?"
Dominic looked at Ava.
Ava folded her arms.
"Please say yes so I can prepare emotionally."
Dominic almost smiled.
"Not that I know of."
Ruiz took the key.
"I'll send officers to the unit."
Adrian immediately spoke.
"I'm going."
"No."
"He's my uncle."
The word surprised everyone.
Adrian looked as startled as they did.
Miles Carter was his uncle if Leah Carter was truly his mother.
Ruiz softened slightly.
"We do not know what is inside that unit."
"Exactly."
"That is why you are not going."
Adrian's jaw set.
Ava recognized the expression.
He was going anyway.
She touched his arm.
"Don't make this worse."
He looked at her.
"You made one phone call and froze half my family's financial life."
"Fair point."
"I'm going."
Ava sighed.
"Then I'm going too."
Dominic shook his head.
"Absolutely not."
Ava looked at him.
"You lost the right to say absolutely not when you brought a secret ledger to my wedding without telling me it existed."
Ruiz closed her notebook.
"None of you are going."
Three phones rang at once.
Ruiz's was one of them.
She answered.
Her face changed as she listened.
"Repeat that."
She turned away from the room.
Ava felt dread settle into her stomach.
Ruiz ended the call.
"The storage unit was already open when patrol arrived."
Adrian stepped forward.
"Was Miles there?"
"No."
"What was inside?"
Ruiz looked at Dominic.
"Photographs."
"Of what?"
"Your families."
Ava frowned.
Ruiz continued.
"Hundreds of them."
She looked at Adrian.
"And one wall covered with pictures of you from birth to this morning."
Adrian went pale.
"This morning?"
Ruiz nodded.
"Someone photographed you leaving your apartment for your wedding."
Ava's skin prickled.
Then Ruiz added the detail that made Dominic swear.
"There is also a photograph of Miles Carter taken tonight."
"Where?"
May you like
"In this hotel."
