Chapter 16 - WHAT SURVIVED
The lighter skidded across the concrete without igniting.
Police rushed both men.
Victor fought, screaming about betrayal. Nate did not fight at all.
He lay on the floor with his hands behind his head.
"I'm done," he said.
The original medical folder survived.
So did the intake notes from the night of the crash.
Mara Elise Voss, age 29. Conscious briefly. Repeatedly asking for son Daniel. Husband requested no contact pending psychiatric evaluation.
There was a mother waking from trauma and asking for her child.
Police arrested Victor, Nate, and - before sunrise - Leonard Hale. Dr. Kessler surrendered through an attorney.
By morning, news vans surrounded the Voss estate.
Daniel did not go home.
He sat with Mara in Emily's apartment, still wearing the tuxedo pants from his wedding. Mara wore one of Emily's sweaters because police had taken her coat as evidence.
Finally Daniel asked the question that had been waiting all night.
"Why didn't you find me when I turned eighteen?"
"I did."
"I came to your college graduation. Victor's security stopped me in the parking lot. They showed me a statement supposedly signed by you."
"What statement?"
I know who Mara Bell is. I want no contact with her now or ever.
"I never wrote this."
"I know that now. I didn't then."
"I thought you hated me. I thought maybe leaving you alone was the only loving thing I had left to do."
"I'm angry at you too," he whispered.
She nodded. "You get to be."
"I don't know how to do this."
"Neither do I."
That answer helped more than an apology would have.
"The board is meeting in two hours. Victor's lawyers are trying to remove you from the company before the trust investigation freezes his voting shares."
May you like
His father was in jail and still trying to control his life.
"Then maybe it's time you take back more than your name."
