Chapter 9 - The Fugitive
Dad’s disappearance became national news within twenty-four hours.
The story was no longer about a family argument.
Reporters learned about the Whitmore investigation.
They learned about the shell company.
Then somebody leaked that I was Daniel Whitmore’s girlfriend and the mother of his newborn daughter.
Cameras appeared outside the townhouse.
Headlines called me everything from “secret heiress” to “fraud mastermind.”
I was twenty-one.
Three weeks postpartum.
I had barely slept.
Now strangers were debating whether my baby had been conceived as part of a corporate scheme.
Daniel wanted to issue a statement.
I stopped him.
“No.”
“They’re attacking you.”
“If you defend me, they’ll say your family is controlling the story.”
“Then what do you want?”
“I want the evidence.”
Maya smiled for the first time in days.
“Good answer.”
We released the company registration records showing my forged signatures.
We released the blocked-message logs.
We released nothing involving Grandma’s death.
That evidence belonged with investigators.
Public opinion shifted almost instantly.
Dad became the central suspect.
Then security footage surfaced from a private airfield.
Dad had boarded Caleb’s jet.
They had fled together.
Interpol notices followed.
But the jet disappeared from tracking over Southeast Asia after changing registration codes.
Daniel blamed himself.
“If I hadn’t gone to Singapore—”
“Stop.”
He looked at me.
“You trusted your uncle.”
“And you trusted your father.”
That ended the argument.
We had both been manipulated.
Neither of us needed another person assigning blame.
Three days later, Emma developed a fever.
Everything else stopped mattering.
We rushed her to the hospital.
Daniel held my hand while doctors examined her.
It was a minor infection.
She would recover.
But while we sat beside her crib, I saw Daniel crying silently.
“You thought you lost her once already.”
He nodded.
“I can survive losing money.”
“My job.”
“My uncle.”
“All of it.”
He looked at Emma.
“I can’t lose her.”
I took his hand.
For the first time since he returned, the months between us seemed to shrink.
Then Maya entered the hospital room.
She held a printed email.
“We found Robert.”
Daniel stood.
“Where?”
Maya looked at me.
“He contacted federal prosecutors.”
I stared at her.
“He surrendered?”
“No.”
“He wants immunity.”
“For what?”
Maya hesitated.
“For testifying that Caleb ordered your grandmother’s death.”
My blood turned cold.
“And what did my father do?”
May you like
Maya’s expression told me before she spoke.
“He says he helped cover it up.”
