The name Samuel Hale had been used by two different men.
That was the first thing we established on the drive home.
The second was more disturbing.
The man in Eleanor's photograph had not been Marcus.
He had been someone else.
Someone Rebecca had trusted.
Someone who knew about me before I could speak.
Marcus spent the entire drive staring at the photograph.
“I don't remember him.”
“Rebecca did,” I said.
“Yes.”
Victor remained quiet until we reached the highway.
Then he said, “I know who he is.”
I turned.
“Who?”
“Samuel Hale.”
Marcus looked at him.
“You said you didn't know.”
“I didn't know he was using that name.”
“Then who was he?”
Victor looked at me through the rearview mirror.
“His real name was Edward Cross.”
The name made no immediate sense.
Then I remembered Helen Cross.
The secretary.
The woman who had warned us.
“Related to Helen?”
“Her father.”
Marcus swore softly.
Victor explained that Edward Cross had worked with Charles Avery.
He handled the financial records.
He knew which accounts were being used.
He had access to the settlement documents.
And he had known Rebecca.
“Why would Rebecca trust him?”
“Because he pretended to help her.”
I looked at the photograph.
“He was the man she thought was Thomas.”
“Yes.”
“Then who was Thomas?”
“Thomas Avery was real.”
“Where was he?”
“Dead before Rebecca.”
The story was becoming more tangled.
Edward had apparently taken Thomas's identity because Thomas had access to Avery family accounts.
Rebecca discovered the deception.
She confronted him.
Instead of exposing him, she tried to use the information to protect me.
Edward learned that she knew.
That made her dangerous.
But there was still one question.
Who had ordered the killing?
Victor answered it before I asked.
“Edward.”
My stomach tightened.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“Because I delivered the message.”
I turned toward him.
“What message?”
“Charles told me to tell Edward that Rebecca had to disappear.”
Marcus looked furious.
“And you did?”
“Yes.”
“You helped kill her.”
Victor didn't defend himself.
“Yes.”
I stared out the window.
The confession was horrible.
But somehow it also clarified something.
Victor wasn't the mastermind.
He had been a courier in a system built on fear.
That didn't absolve him.
But it explained why he had spent decades trying to expose it.
When we returned to the house, Lawrence was waiting.
I told him everything.
When I mentioned Edward Cross, his face went blank.
“You know him.”
“Yes.”
“Where is he?”
Lawrence sat down.
“I believed he died.”
“When?”
“Twenty years ago.”
“How?”
“A boating accident.”
I looked at Victor.
“He's alive.”
Lawrence rubbed his forehead.
“Then the death was staged.”
We searched old records.
Edward Cross had supposedly died near Lake Superior.
There was a death certificate.
A newspaper article.
A funeral notice.
But no body had ever been recovered.
The more we looked, the clearer it became.
Edward had disappeared.
He had assumed another identity.
And someone had helped him.
That person was my mother.
I discovered it in an old hotel register.
Ellen Bennett had signed in under the name “Eleanor Cross” three weeks after Rebecca's death.
She had met Edward.
The record was undeniable.
I called my mother.
“Did you help Edward Cross disappear?”
She didn't answer.
“Mom.”
“Yes.”
The word was barely audible.
“Why?”
“Because he threatened me.”
“With what?”
“With you.”
I closed my eyes.
“What did he want?”
“The original settlement documents.”
“Did you give them to him?”
“No.”
“Then what did you give him?”
“Information.”
“What information?”
She began crying.
“Where Grandma kept Rebecca's records.”
I looked toward the archive.
“That's why they broke into the house.”
“Yes.”
“But the records survived.”
“Your grandmother moved them.”
I sat down.
My mother continued.
“She knew I had told Edward.”
“Did Dad know?”
“Yes.”
“Did Grandma know?”
“Yes.”
Everyone knew.
Everyone had known pieces.
Nobody had known the whole.
Except perhaps Eleanor.
I asked my mother where she last saw Edward.
She said, “At the train station.”
“What year?”
“2000.”
“Then he disappeared.”
“Yes.”
I hung up.
The next clue came from Helen Cross.
She called that evening.
“I know where Edward went.”
“Where?”
“Canada.”
“Where in Canada?”
“Thunder Bay.”
“Is he still there?”
“I don't know.”
“But you know where he lived.”
“Yes.”
She gave me an address.
The house had been sold years ago.
But the buyer remembered the previous owner.
Edward had lived there under another name.
Thomas Green.
Victor's face went white.
“Green?”
I looked at him.
“Your surname?”
Victor nodded.
“He wasn't just using Thomas's identity.”
“He was using yours.”
“Yes.”
That explained the name Victor Green.
Edward had used Victor's identity to move through the financial network.
He had built layers of false identities around himself.
One person.
Several names.
Twenty-seven years of disappearance.
We contacted Canadian authorities through Lawrence.
They searched the old address.
The current owner allowed investigators to inspect the basement.
They found a locked cabinet.
Inside were old photographs.
Letters.
Bank records.
And a cassette.
The recording was sent to us digitally.
Edward's voice was unmistakable.
He spoke about Rebecca.
He admitted ordering Charles to frighten her.
He said he hadn't intended the car to be sabotaged.
Then he mentioned someone else.
“Daniel knew.”
I closed my eyes.
Again.
Daniel knew.
But Edward had more to say.
“Ellen knew too.”
My mother.
Then:
“She was supposed to keep the child quiet.”
I froze.
The child.
Me.
Edward had not wanted me dead.
He had wanted me controlled.
Because my identity gave him access to the settlement.
The recording continued.
“Ruth is the problem.”
Grandma.
“She won't sell.”
Then a sentence that changed everything.
“Her grandson will.”
I looked at Marcus.
“Her grandson?”
Marcus shook his head.
Edward had referred to someone else.
Someone Grandma had never mentioned.
Someone who had been positioned to inherit if I disappeared.
We searched Grandma's estate documents again.
There was a beneficiary listed in an older will.
A name I had never seen.
Peter Bennett.
My father's younger brother.
My uncle.
He had died when I was six.
Or so I had been told.
Lawrence stared at the document.
“That can't be.”
“Why?”
“Peter didn't die.”
I felt cold.
“He disappeared.”
“Your family told me he was dead.”
“They told everyone.”
Victor stepped forward.
“Then Edward had another partner.”
The pieces suddenly fit.
Peter had motive.
He was family.
He knew the estate.
He knew the settlement.
He knew Grandma's habits.
He could access information without raising suspicion.
And he had vanished.
We searched for him.
A week later, we found an address.
A small town in Oregon.
Peter Bennett was alive.
He had been living under another name for twenty-six years.
And according to the records, he had received monthly payments from an account connected to Edward Cross.
I stared at the document.
My missing uncle wasn't a victim.
He was part of the network.
And he had been paid for years.
Click here to continue reading: PART 15: My Missing Uncle Was Alive and Receiving Secret Payments, but Meeting Him Revealed Why Grandma Had Never Mentioned His Name
My Sister Wanted Half of Grandma’s Estate Before the Funeral Flowers Had Wilted, but One Warning Made Me Realize Something Was Already Wrong
Part 14 of 20
