Chapter 17 - THE UNCLE WHO CAME BACK FROM THE DEAD|
Dominic Hawthorne had been the family's black sheep.
He was charming, reckless, and openly hostile toward Richard's control of the business. When Theodore was a teenager, Dominic often took him sailing and told him that money could buy almost anything except a conscience.
Then, at twenty-nine, Dominic disappeared during a storm off the coast of Maine.
His boat was found damaged against the rocks. No body was recovered, but the family held a funeral and declared him dead.
Now Nadia's adoptive mother's recording suggested he had survived.
Theodore ordered Marcus to search for any recent financial activity connected to Dominic's identity. Within hours, the team found a private account that had received small deposits for fifteen years.
The account was opened under the name David Hale.
Its most recent withdrawal had occurred two days earlier.
At a roadside motel outside Portland, a clerk remembered a gray-haired man with a scar across his left hand. He had paid in cash and asked whether anyone had come looking for him.
Theodore recognized the description.
His uncle had a distinctive scar from a boating accident when Theodore was twelve.
They found him in a rented cabin overlooking a wooded lake.
Dominic opened the door with a shotgun in his hands.
“Get off my property.”
Theodore stared at him.
For several seconds, neither man spoke.
Then Dominic lowered the weapon.
“You look like your father.”
“So I've been told.”
Dominic stepped aside.
Inside the cabin, old newspapers covered a table. Several articles reported Richard's death, Clarissa's engagement to Theodore, and the recent investigation into the Hawthorne Foundation.
Dominic poured coffee and explained that he had survived the boating accident but discovered that someone had tampered with the vessel. He believed Richard had arranged it after a violent argument over the family business.
Rather than return and risk being killed, Dominic disappeared.
“Why didn't you come back?” Theodore asked.
“Because I found evidence that Richard had built the company on stolen assets, falsified inheritances, and blackmail. I thought I could expose him from a distance.”
“Then why didn't you?”
Dominic looked at Nadia.
“Because your existence complicated everything.”
He admitted that he had learned about the twins shortly before the fire. He had wanted to take both children away from Richard, but Victor discovered the plan. Dominic was forced to flee after receiving threats against his own family.
Nadia leaned forward.
“Did you know my mother?”
“I met Margaret twice. She was braver than anyone in that house. She begged me to help find her daughter.”
“And you refused?”
Dominic's expression tightened.
“I failed her. I have spent twenty years living with that failure.”
He handed Theodore a folder containing copies of bank transfers, medical reports, and a photograph of Victor meeting a private investigator near the harbor.
The records linked Victor to Richard's death, the adoption fraud, and the destruction of the workshop.
But one document was different.
It was a letter from Richard to Dominic.
If I die before the truth is exposed, the person who benefits most will not be Victor. Look at my son. Look at the woman he loves. The danger has always been inside the family.
Theodore read it twice.
Nadia looked at Dominic.
“What did he mean?”
Dominic shook his head.
“I never understood.”
Then a vehicle stopped outside the cabin.
Dominic went pale.
He looked through the window and whispered, “You shouldn't have brought her here.”
A woman stepped out of the car.
She wore a dark coat and carried a leather handbag.
Nadia recognized her immediately.
Clarissa Hawthorne Merrill.
But Clarissa was supposed to be under police supervision.
She walked toward the cabin, raised her face to the window, and smiled.
May you like
“Hello, Theodore,” she called.
“I think it's time you met your real enemy.”
