Chapter 5 - The Sister They Erased
Natalie Vance did not know she was Natalie Vance.
Her legal name was Natalie Reed.
Thirty-eight years old.
Emergency-room nurse.
Austin.
Divorced.
One son in college.
According to Detective Ruiz, she had lived an ordinary life almost entirely outside the orbit of money Mason had grown up inside.
Mason envied her for approximately fifteen seconds.
Then they learned she was missing.
Her hospital said she had left work at 7:12 the previous evening.
She never arrived home.
Her car was discovered in a grocery-store parking garage.
Keys gone.
Phone gone.
No obvious signs of violence.
Ruiz looked at Mason.
“This could be voluntary.”
“It isn’t.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Someone texted me her photograph.”
“That doesn’t prove they took her.”
Mason stared at her.
Ruiz sighed.
“I know.”
Lily and Joanne remained under protection.
Joanne had been discharged to a rehabilitation facility, and Mason privately paid the medical bills only after a twenty-minute argument.
“I don’t want charity,” Joanne told him.
“It isn’t charity.”
“What is it?”
“Back pay.”
“I didn’t work for you after they fired me.”
“You tried to save my company from theft. Apparently that was full-time employment.”
She eventually surrendered.
Mason went to Austin with Ruiz.
Natalie’s apartment felt strange.
Photographs covered the refrigerator.
Natalie as a child.
Natalie graduating nursing school.
Natalie with a woman Mason recognized from the letters as Anna.
His mother.
Older.
Smiling.
Alive at least twelve years after Mason had been told she died.
He touched the photograph.
“She raised Natalie.”
Ruiz stood beside him.
“Yes.”
“She could’ve contacted me.”
“Maybe she tried.”
“She could’ve tried harder.”
Ruiz looked at him.
“You were seven when your father lied to you. Don’t turn what he did into your mother’s failure before you know what happened.”
Mason looked at her.
“That was unusually compassionate.”
“Don’t spread it around.”
They searched the apartment.
In the bedroom closet, Mason found a small metal box.
Inside were birthday cards.
One every year.
All addressed to Mason.
Never mailed.
Age eight.
Age nine.
Age ten.
Twenty.
Thirty.
He opened the last.
Happy birthday, my boy.
I still check the newspapers for your name.
You look like your father now, but I hope your heart stayed yours.
Mason sat on the floor.
Ruiz quietly left the room.
For the first time since his father’s death, Mason cried.
Not loudly.
Not dramatically.
He simply sat there holding twenty-five years of cards that had never reached him.
His mother had not forgotten.
Someone had made sure love never crossed the distance.
His phone rang.
Unknown number.
He answered.
“Natalie?”
A woman whispered, “Who is this?”
He stood.
“Mason.”
Silence.
“Mason who?”
“Vance.”
Another silence.
Then:
“Oh my God.”
His chest tightened.
“You know me.”
“My mother talked about you.”
“Where are you?”
“I don’t know.”
Ruiz reentered and immediately began tracing the call.
Natalie whispered, “Two men grabbed me outside work.”
“Are you hurt?”
“No.”
“Can you see anything?”
“Concrete room. No windows.”
“Listen to me. Police are tracing.”
“I heard them mention Grand Crest.”
Mason’s blood chilled.
“The hotel?”
“Yes.”
Then a man’s voice appeared.
“Time.”
Natalie gasped.
The phone changed hands.
Richard Vance spoke.
“Mason.”
Mason closed his eyes.
“You took her.”
“I protected her for thirty-eight years.”
“By kidnapping her?”
“I didn’t order this.”
“Yet you’re standing beside her.”
“Because I’m trying to fix it.”
“Who has you?”
A pause.
Then a different voice.
Brandon Cole.
The chef.
“Bring the box.”
Mason stared at Ruiz.
“Brandon.”
Ruiz began writing.
Brandon continued.
“All originals. Invoices. Letters. Everything.”
“Why would I trade evidence for a sister I’ve never met?”
Natalie shouted in the background, “Don’t!”
Mason felt something fierce rise in him.
He answered:
“Because she’s my sister.”
Silence.
Then Brandon laughed.
“Grand Crest loading dock. Midnight.”
The line died.
Ruiz immediately said, “You’re not going alone.”
“He expects me.”
“Wonderful. You can meet him surrounded by officers.”
“He has Natalie.”
“And perhaps Richard.”
“I don’t care about Richard.”
“That isn’t true.”
Mason looked away.
She was annoyingly perceptive.
At 11:58 p.m., Mason drove into the Grand Crest service entrance carrying a replica wooden box.
The originals were in federal custody.
He wore no wire that Brandon could easily detect.
Instead, Ruiz had hidden a transmitter inside one of Mason’s belt rivets.
The loading dock door opened.
Brandon stood inside.
No chef’s coat.
No arrogance.
Just a frightened man holding a gun.
“Box.”
“Where’s Natalie?”
“Inside.”
“And Richard?”
Brandon’s expression changed.
“You still care?”
“Barely.”
Mason set the box on a pallet.
Natalie appeared from behind a storage cage with her hands bound.
Richard was beside her.
His face was bruised.
Mason stared at his uncle.
Richard whispered, “I’m sorry.”
Mason ignored him.
Brandon opened the box.
He immediately knew.
“These are copies.”
“Yes.”
His gun lifted.
Natalie flinched.
Mason said, “The originals are already with law enforcement.”
Brandon’s face collapsed.
“You idiot.”
“It’s over.”
“No.”
Brandon laughed desperately.
“You think this was about invoices?”
“What else?”
“Your uncle didn’t steal six million dollars because he likes expensive vacations.”
Richard closed his eyes.
Mason looked at him.
“Tell me.”
Richard whispered, “I was paying someone.”
“Who?”
“To keep Anna hidden.”
Mason froze.
“What?”
Richard began crying.
“Your mother wasn’t running from me.”
“Then who?”
Brandon answered.
“Your father.”
Mason’s chest tightened.
“He’s dead.”
Brandon smiled.
“Yes.”
Then he raised the gun.
“But the people who worked for him aren’t.”
Suddenly the loading dock lights died.
Natalie screamed.
A shot rang out.
Mason hit the floor.
Then another gunshot.
Police flooded the loading bay.
When the lights returned, Brandon lay wounded but alive.
Richard sat against the wall.
Natalie ran toward Mason.
They stopped inches apart.
Brother and sister.
Strangers.
Natalie looked at his face.
“You really are him.”
Mason nodded.
“I think so.”
Then she hugged him.
For thirty-eight years, Mason had believed he was an only child.
That night, kneeling on a dirty loading dock surrounded by police lights and broken boxes, he found family.
May you like
But the truth about his father was still waiting.
And it would be uglier than anything Richard had stolen.
