Chapter 11 - Carla Runs
By sunrise, Carla was gone.
Her car was found at a hotel near the airport.
Her phone was inside.
So was a suitcase filled with clothes.
It looked like she wanted police to believe she had planned to fly somewhere.
She had not.
A parking camera showed her leaving in a gray sedan six hours earlier.
The driver wore a baseball cap.
Police could not identify him.
Mark claimed he knew nothing.
I almost believed him.
Almost.
Detective Sloan questioned him for seven hours.
When he finally asked to speak with me, I refused.
Then he sent a message through Margaret.
I DIDN’T KNOW ABOUT THE INSURANCE POLICY.
I read it twice.
“Do you believe him?” Margaret asked.
“I don’t know what I believe anymore.”
That afternoon, investigators identified the safe deposit key.
The box belonged to a bank in downtown Boise.
The account holder was not my father.
It was Ethan.
My hands shook when Margaret told me.
“Dad had Ethan’s key?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“We’re hoping the box tells us.”
The bank required court authorization because of Ethan’s death.
By evening, Detective Sloan, Margaret, and I were permitted to open it.
I left Lily and Noah with two nurses and an armed security officer.
It was the first time I had been away from them since the hospital.
Every elevator ride felt too long.
Every stranger made me nervous.
Inside the bank vault, an employee placed Ethan’s box on a private table.
Margaret inserted the key.
The lid opened.
Inside were three things.
A red notebook.
A sealed envelope.
And a small digital recorder.
No flash drive.
No Garage File Seven.
I opened the notebook.
Ethan had written dates.
Payments.
Names.
License plate numbers.
At the center of one page he had written:
RICHARD THINKS CARLA WORKS FOR HIM.
SHE DOESN’T.
I showed Sloan.
“What does that mean?”
She kept reading.
On the next page:
CARLA HAS HER OWN EXIT PLAN.
$5M POLICY?
CONFIRM BENEFICIARY.
Below that:
MARK MAY NOT KNOW.
I stared at the sentence.
Maybe my brother was guilty of stealing.
Maybe he had lied.
But Ethan apparently did not believe Mark knew the entire plan.
Margaret opened the sealed envelope.
Inside was a photocopy of a hotel receipt from six months earlier.
Richard Hale.
Carla Mercer Hale.
One room.
Two nights.
Salt Lake City.
I felt disgust rise in my throat.
“My father and Carla?”
Margaret said nothing.
My mother had spent thirty-nine years married to Richard.
Mark had spent six years married to Carla.
And apparently both spouses had been betrayed.
But Sloan was looking at something else.
“Look at the date.”
I did.
The hotel stay occurred the same weekend Ethan first discovered suspicious company payments.
Had Dad and Carla been meeting to discuss the theft?
Or something else?
I picked up the digital recorder.
There was one audio file.
I pressed play.
At first, only restaurant noise.
Then Dad’s voice.
“Once Ethan is gone, Claire will be useless.”
My blood turned to ice.
Carla answered.
“And Mark?”
Dad laughed.
“Mark has always been useful because he’s stupid.”
Another pause.
Then Carla said, “And if Claire refuses to sign?”
My father’s reply was clear.
May you like
“That’s why we take the boy first.”
*
