SEASON 2 — PART 9: THE PRICE OF THE ORIGINAL AGREEMENT
Richard’s final message remained on Beth’s phone.
ONE DAUGHTER ALREADY PAID FOR THE OTHER.
NOW LET’S SEE WHICH SISTER IS WILLING TO PAY AGAIN.
Detective Ortiz immediately tried to trace the call.
It had come through an encrypted application installed on a contraband phone inside Richard’s prison.
By the time officers entered his cell, the phone was gone.
Richard was sitting calmly on his bed.
He denied making the call.
When guards searched the security footage, they discovered that the camera outside his cell had stopped recording for exactly nine minutes.
“He still has people helping him,” Beth said.
“He always has,” I replied.
Samuel began investigating Martin Sloan.
What he found explained why Richard wanted Beth to sue me.
Sloan had approached her through an organization that helped adults locate their birth families.
He offered to investigate Dad’s estate without charging her anything in advance.
If he recovered money, his firm would receive forty percent.
Beth had signed the agreement before coming to Union Station.
“You gave him forty percent of your claim?” I asked.
“I had no money to hire anyone.”
“Did you read every page?”
Her eyes lowered.
“No.”
Samuel placed the final page on the table.
Beth had also given Sloan authority to negotiate, accept settlements, and transfer legal fees through a company called Heritage Recovery Partners.
The company had been created fourteen months earlier.
Its registered owner was one of Richard’s false identities.
“If Beth receives the entire trust, Sloan takes more than three million dollars,” Samuel explained. “That money passes through Heritage Recovery and returns to Richard.”
Beth looked sick.
“I thought Martin found me.”
“He did,” Detective Ortiz said. “Because Richard told him where you were.”
“He listened to me talk about being stolen. He watched me cry.”
“He used your pain because Richard couldn’t reach the trust directly.”
I remembered Dad’s warning.
Money gives people enough room to reveal who they already are.
Richard had revealed something worse.
He did not need to possess money himself.
He only needed to convince other people that taking it would heal them.
“What does he want in exchange for the cabinet?” I asked.
As if Richard had heard me, Beth’s phone rang again.
This time, Detective Ortiz connected the call to a recording device.
Beth answered.
“What do you want?”
Richard’s voice was calm.
“I want you to receive what Walter owed you.”
“Martin works for you.”
“Martin works for whoever pays him.”
“You planned the lawsuit.”
“I gave you a path to justice.”
“You gave yourself forty percent.”
“A small fee for returning your life.”
“My life is not inside Clare’s trust.”
“Then withdraw the lawsuit.”
Beth looked at me.
“That is exactly what I’m going to do.”
Richard became silent.
“You don’t mean that.”
“Yes, I do.”
“Clare received everything.”
“She didn’t steal me.”
“She spent your money.”
“She built a hospital fund.”
“With the price of your childhood.”
Beth’s voice hardened.
“You sold me for forty thousand dollars.”
“Walter kept you sold for two hundred and fifty thousand.”
“At least he spent the rest of his life regretting it.”
“And now you want his letters more than his fortune.”
“I want nothing from you.”
Richard laughed softly.
“You still want the original agreement.”
“Yes.”
“Then Clare signs the settlement.”
“What settlement?”
“Walter’s entire trust transfers to you. You pay Sloan according to your contract. After the transfer clears, Martin gives you the cabinet.”
Samuel wrote a message and turned it toward Beth.
Agree to consider it. Ask for proof.
Beth read it.
“How do I know you still have the documents?”
A video arrived.
Martin Sloan stood beside the cabinet from Room 214.
He removed the original agreement and held it close to the camera.
The document contained Dad’s handwritten change.
Permanent had been crossed out.
Until Caroline Hail reaches eighteen years of age had been written above it.
Dad had signed beside the correction.
So had a representative of the adoption agency.
He had not surrendered Caroline forever.
At the bottom of the cabinet lay the red hospital ledger and Dad’s sealed letter.
“Where is the meeting?” Beth asked.
“Martin will contact you tomorrow.”
The call ended.
Detective Ortiz turned off the recorder.
“We can use the exchange to arrest Sloan and recover the documents.”
“What about Richard?” I asked.
“He is already serving decades. This gives us evidence that he is directing extortion from prison.”
Samuel shook his head.
“Sloan will never bring the cabinet unless he believes the settlement is real.”
“Then we make him believe it,” I said.
For the next twenty-four hours, Samuel prepared a false settlement agreement.
It appeared to transfer the entire trust to Beth.
It included official seals, account numbers, and signature pages.
But a hidden clause made the document legally invalid.
The bank had also agreed to display a temporary confirmation screen showing that the transfer was processing.
Detective Ortiz placed tracking devices inside the document folder and beneath Beth’s coat.
“I don’t like this,” I told her.
“Neither do I,” Beth said.
“You don’t have to go.”
“Yes, I do.”
“We can let the police handle it.”
“Richard stole my name, my parents, and fifty years of my life. I will not let him keep Dad’s final letter too.”
It was the first time she called him Dad without hesitation.
Martin Sloan contacted us at seven the next evening.
He chose the abandoned Hail Mechanical machine shop where Dad and Richard had started the company.
The building had been empty for years.
Broken windows covered the floor.
The old company sign still hung above the entrance, faded by weather.
HAIL MECHANICAL—BUILT ON TRUST.
Beth stared at the words.
“Was that Dad’s idea?”
“Yes.”
“Richard must have laughed every time he saw it.”
Police officers surrounded the building before we entered.
Detective Ortiz and her team waited inside an unmarked truck across the street.
Samuel remained nearby with the bank representative.
Only Beth and I carried the settlement inside.
Martin stood in the center of the old workshop.
The metal cabinet from Room 214 was behind him.
“Where is Richard?” Beth asked.
“Safe.”
“He’s in prison.”
“Prison is simply another office if you know whom to pay.”
I held up the settlement folder.
“Show us the original agreement.”
“Place the folder on the table.”
“Show us the agreement first.”
Sloan smiled.
“You sound like your father.”
“You never knew him.”
“I know what he was willing to buy.”
Beth stepped toward him.
“You told me you believed Richard sold me.”
“I told you what you needed to hear.”
“You used me.”
“I represented your interests.”
“You represented Richard.”
“Richard understands that justice requires money.”
“No. Richard understands that greed makes people easy to control.”
Sloan’s smile disappeared.
He placed the original agreement on the table.
Beth examined Dad’s handwritten correction.
“He came back for me,” she whispered.
“He tried,” I said.
Sloan opened the red ledger.
Fourteen infants were listed inside.
Beside each name was an amount.
Richard and Diane had participated in more than one illegal adoption.
Caroline had not been the first child sold.
She had been the seventh.
“Give me the settlement,” Sloan demanded.
I placed the folder beside the ledger.
He examined my signature.
Then he opened his laptop and connected to the bank’s verification system.
The false transfer appeared on the screen.
STATUS: PENDING FINAL APPROVAL.
“What final approval?” he asked.
“The bank releases the money after we receive the cabinet,” I said.
“That wasn’t the agreement.”
“It is now.”
Sloan looked toward the darkened windows.
For a moment, I thought he had detected the police.
Then Beth’s phone vibrated.
A photograph appeared.
Her son Owen was sitting inside a van.
His wrists were tied behind his back.
A man in a mask stood beside him.
Beth made a sound I had never heard before.
Not a scream.
Something deeper.
The sound of a mother seeing her child in danger.
“If the police enter,” Sloan said, “Owen dies.”
“You said he wasn’t involved,” Beth whispered.
“I said Richard wanted the trust.”
“Let my son go.”
“Give me the final approval.”
“I can’t. Clare controls it.”
Sloan looked at me.
“Call the bank.”
“No.”
He turned the laptop.
A live video showed the masked man pressing a gun against Owen’s head.
“You have thirty seconds.”
Beth grabbed my arm.
“Do it.”
“If I approve the transfer, Richard wins.”
“That is my son!”
“The transfer is fake.”
Sloan’s head snapped toward me.
Beth stared at me.
“You told him?”
“I’m not letting Richard use your fear to steal from us again.”
Sloan reached inside his jacket.
Detective Ortiz’s voice came through the small receiver hidden in my ear.
Move away from him now.
Before I could step back, Beth struck me across the face.
I fell against the table.
She tore the tracking device from beneath her coat and crushed it under her shoe.
“Beth?”
“I’m sorry.”
She took the settlement folder.
Then she grabbed the original agreement and Dad’s sealed letter from the cabinet.
Sloan pointed toward a rear door.
“Move.”
Beth looked at me one final time.
“If the police follow us, Owen dies.”
“You can’t trust him.”
“I don’t.”
“Then don’t go.”
She held Dad’s letter against her chest.
“You asked how our father could choose one daughter when both needed him.”
Her eyes filled with tears.
“Now I understand.”
Sloan forced her through the rear exit.
A van engine started.
Detective Ortiz and her officers entered seconds later.
The cabinet was still there.
The hospital ledger was inside.
But the original agreement, Dad’s letter, Sloan, and Beth were gone.
“We have to follow them!” I shouted.
“Owen will be killed if they see police,” Ortiz said.
“They’ll kill him anyway.”
A tracking signal appeared on her tablet.
“What is that?” I asked.
“The settlement folder.”
Beth had crushed the tracker beneath her coat.
But she had taken the second tracker hidden inside the documents.
“She knew,” I whispered.
Beth’s betrayal had been an act.
She was leading us to Owen.
Police followed the signal from a distance.
The van traveled north for twenty-three miles.
Then it entered an old highway tunnel.
The signal stopped.
By the time officers reached the other side, the van was gone.
They searched every exit.
Nothing.
At midnight, a highway worker found the vehicle abandoned inside a maintenance passage.
The driver’s door was open.
Blood covered the rear seat.
Owen’s restraints lay on the floor.
There was no sign of Beth, Owen, or Sloan.
A laboratory tested the blood.
It belonged to Beth.
Her phone rested on the driver’s seat.
One unsent message appeared on the screen.
Clare,
I chose Owen, just as Dad chose you.
Please don’t follow me.
I read it three times.
Beth had not written those words.
Richard had.
My phone rang.
A blocked number.
Detective Ortiz activated the recorder before I answered.
Richard spoke immediately.
“Now you understand Walter.”
“Where is my sister?”
“When two people you love are in danger, you save the one standing in front of you.”
“If you hurt Beth or Owen—”
“That depends on you.”
“What do you want?”
“The trust is no longer enough.”
My stomach tightened.
“What else is there?”
“Walter’s final confession.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Caroline took the sealed letter from the cabinet. She opened it before Sloan stopped the van.”
Richard paused.
“Now she knows the truth your father hid from both of you.”
“What truth?”
“That Walter did not sign the agreement merely to save your life.”
My hand began to shake.
“Then why did he sign it?”
“Because the adoption agency knew what he had done on the night you and Caroline were born.”
“What did Dad do?”
Richard laughed.
“Ask your sister—if you reach her before she bleeds to death.”
The call ended.
Detective Ortiz traced the final signal from Beth’s phone.
It came from the ruins of St. Catherine’s Hospital.
The place where we were born.
The place where Beth was stolen.
And now, somewhere inside that abandoned building, my sister was dying with Dad’s final confession in her hands….
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