Chương 9
Aaron looked at her.
“And you were wrong.”
Daniel’s hand closed around the back of the visitor chair.
“What did my father hire Vale to do?”
Aaron did not answer immediately.
Daniel’s voice rose.
“What did he hire him to do?”
Aaron looked at the sleeping baby.
Then he looked back at Daniel.
“To find Maya Wilson.”
Daniel’s grip tightened on the chair until his knuckles whitened.
“That’s not possible.”
Aaron’s expression barely moved.
“It is.”
“My father died before Maya ever met me.”
“Your father started looking for her before he died.”
Maya stared at Aaron as if the bed beneath her had shifted.
“Why?”
Aaron looked at her.
“That is the question Caleb was trying to answer when he disappeared.”
Daniel released the chair.
It scraped softly against the floor.
“You’re telling me my father hired Vale to find Maya years before she worked for Vale.”
“Yes.”
“And then somehow she ended up working for the same firm.”
“Yes.”
Daniel gave a short, disbelieving laugh.
“That’s a coincidence.”
“No.”
Aaron’s answer came too quickly.
Daniel stepped toward him.
“Then explain it.”
Aaron glanced toward Maya.
“She applied for the job herself.”
“I know that part.”
“What you don’t know is that her application never went through normal intake.”
Maya’s face tightened.
“What?”
“I checked later.”
Aaron kept his voice even.
“Vale had a recruiter flag your name.”
Maya shook her head.
“I answered an online posting.”
“You did.”
“And?”
“The posting was real.”
Aaron paused.
“But your application was routed directly to Vale.”
Daniel looked at Maya.
She looked sick.
“Why?” he asked.
Aaron looked back at him.
“Because of her last name.”
Maya’s lips parted.
“Wilson.”
“Yes.”
“There are thousands of Wilsons.”
“Vale had more than a last name.”
Aaron reached into his jacket again.
This time Daniel did not stop him.
Aaron removed a folded sheet of paper and opened it carefully.
The page had been copied so many times that the text near the edges had begun to blur.
At the top was Maya’s full name.
Below it were two addresses.
One was the apartment where she had lived at twenty-three.
The second belonged to her mother in Arizona.
Maya’s eyes moved lower.
Her face changed.
Daniel saw it.
“What?”
Maya did not answer.
Aaron handed the page to him.
Daniel read the third line.
Emergency contact: Laura Wilson.
Then the fourth.
Father: Samuel Reed.
Daniel looked at Maya.
“You told me you didn’t know your father.”
“I didn’t.”
Aaron folded his arms.
“Apparently someone did.”
Maya looked at him sharply.
“Who was Samuel Reed?”
Aaron’s eyes stayed on hers.
“I was hoping you could tell me.”
“I’ve never heard that name in my life.”
Daniel studied her.
For once, Maya did not look defensive.
She looked frightened in a different way, stripped of preparation.
Aaron noticed too.
“You really didn’t know.”
“No.”
“Your mother never mentioned him?”
“No.”
“Not once?”
“She said my father left before I was born.”
“What name did she give you?”
“She didn’t.”
Daniel looked at Maya.
“You never told me that.”
“You never asked his name.”
“I assumed you knew it.”
“So did I, once.”
Maya looked down at the sheet in Daniel’s hand.
“My mother wouldn’t talk about him.”
Aaron stepped closer to the end of the bed.
“Did she ever say why?”
“She said some people are easier to survive when you stop giving them room in your life.”
Daniel’s eyes shifted to Aaron.
“That sounds specific.”
“It was.”
Maya’s voice had gone distant.
“I thought it meant he was abusive.”
Aaron nodded slowly.
“Maybe he was.”
“That’s not what you think.”
“No.”
“What do you think?”
Aaron hesitated for the first time since entering the room.
“I think Samuel Reed knew Richard Carter.”
Daniel went still.
“My father.”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“We found an old corporate filing.”
Aaron looked at him.
“They served on the board of the same development company in Milwaukee in the late nineties.”
Daniel frowned.
“My father never lived in Milwaukee.”
“He did for eleven months.”
“No.”
Aaron took out his phone again.
He opened a document.
Daniel leaned toward the screen.
His father’s name appeared beside Samuel Reed’s on a list of officers.
Below them sat another name.
Thomas Vale.
Maya stared.
“Vale too.”
“Yes.”
Daniel looked from the phone to Aaron.
“What company?”
“Lakeshore Redevelopment Partners.”
“What did it do?”
“Bought distressed commercial properties.”
“That sounds like Dad.”
“It was.”
Aaron slipped the phone back into his pocket.
“The company dissolved after a lawsuit.”
“What lawsuit?”
“Investor fraud.”
Daniel’s expression sharpened.
“Was my father charged?”
“No.”
“Samuel?”
“No.”
“Vale?”
“No.”
“Then what does that prove?”
“Nothing by itself.”
Aaron’s eyes moved to Maya.
“But Caleb found another connection.”
Maya’s voice dropped.
“What?”
“A woman named Laura Mitchell worked in accounting there.”
Maya stopped breathing for a second.
Daniel looked at her.
“Your mother.”
“She was Laura Wilson.”
“Before she married?”
“She never married.”
Aaron nodded.
“Mitchell was her maiden name.”
Maya stared at him.
“How do you know that?”
“Public records.”
She shook her head.
“No.”
“What?”
“My mother told me she changed her name because she wanted the same name as me.”
Aaron’s face softened slightly.
“That may still be true.”
Daniel looked between them.
“But if she worked with my father and Samuel Reed, then she knew them both.”
“Yes.”
Maya’s hands trembled.
“She lied to me.”
Daniel almost spoke.
Then stopped.
The sentence sounded too familiar in the room.
Aaron looked toward him.
“Richard Carter hired Vale eleven years ago to locate Maya.”
“Why then?”
“I don’t know.”
“You keep saying you know all these things, and then the only thing that matters becomes I don’t know.”
Aaron accepted that without protest.
“Because the records stop there.”
Daniel’s voice sharpened.
“What records?”
“Northline paid Vale for an initial search.”
“And?”
“Vale identified Maya’s mother first.”
“Then Maya.”
“Yes.”
“How old was she?”
Aaron looked at Maya.
“Nineteen.”
Maya’s face tightened.
May you like
Daniel stepped closer to Aaron.
“My father hired someone to track a nineteen-year-old woman.”
