Chapter 4 - Courtney’s SecretI did not go alone.
I also did not tell Courtney that.
Daniel called the police.
Robert contacted the private security company Lucas had quietly hired months earlier.
And I stayed exactly where my doctor wanted me—inside the hospital—while investigators arranged for Courtney to believe I was on my way to meet her.
She chose a motel outside Auburn.
Room 214.
The kind of place where curtains remained shut at noon and nobody asked questions if you paid cash.
At 6:13 p.m., Courtney entered.
At 6:19, an undercover officer knocked.
By 6:23, she was in custody.
Not arrested.
Not yet.
But scared enough to talk.
I learned the details from Detective Maria Alvarez the next morning.
Courtney denied having anything to do with Lucas’s death.
She admitted requesting his vehicle maintenance records.
But she claimed Ethan told her to do it.
“He said Lucas was hiding money from Emma,” Courtney told police. “I thought Charles deserved to know.”
That sentence told me everything I needed to know about her moral compass.
Still, Detective Alvarez believed one part of her story.
Courtney was afraid.
Not of my father.
Of Ethan.
That stunned me.
“My brother?”
Alvarez nodded.
“He contacted Courtney before she married Charles.”
“Why?”
“To gain access to your father.”
The detective placed a photograph on the table.
Ethan and Courtney sat together inside a restaurant.
The timestamp was almost a year old.
Months before Courtney claimed she met my father.
My hands went numb.
“They knew each other first?”
“Yes.”
Courtney admitted Ethan introduced her to Charles at a charity event.
He encouraged the relationship.
He coached her on Charles’s preferences.
Wine.
Music.
Favorite vacation spots.
Even the kind of perfume my mother had worn.
I felt sick.
“He manufactured my father’s romance?”
“That appears to be the allegation.”
“Why?”
“Access.”
“To Dad’s money?”
“Possibly.”
“But Dad doesn’t have any.”
“Ethan may not have known how bad the finances were.”
I stared at the photograph.
My younger brother had selected my father’s wife.
That level of manipulation was hard to comprehend.
“Did Dad know?”
“Courtney says no.”
I wasn’t sure whether that made things better or worse.
Alvarez continued.
“According to Courtney, Ethan approached her about two months before Lucas died. He wanted copies of documents from Charles’s office.”
“What documents?”
“Loan agreements. Property records. Insurance policies.”
“Why?”
“She claims she didn’t know.”
I laughed bitterly.
“Courtney does a lot of things without knowing why.”
“Apparently.”
“What about Lucas’s car?”
“She says Ethan asked her to obtain maintenance records because Charles had once arranged service for Lucas through one of his dealership contacts.”
That memory hit me.
Dad had recommended a mechanic after Lucas complained about a vibration in the steering.
Lucas didn’t want to use him.
I teased him for being paranoid.
He eventually agreed because I asked.
My stomach dropped.
“Was something wrong with the car?”
“We’re examining it again.”
“The police already investigated the accident.”
“They examined the crash. Now they’re examining whether the mechanical failure happened before the crash.”
I suddenly couldn’t breathe properly.
“What mechanical failure?”
Alvarez hesitated.
“The preliminary report mentioned possible steering-system damage.”
I closed my eyes.
Lucas had been driving home in freezing rain.
If he couldn’t steer…
I pressed my palms against my stomach.
Noah kicked.
A tiny reminder that I was still here.
“Do you think Ethan killed him?”
“We don’t know.”
“Courtney thinks he did?”
“She thinks he is capable of it.”
I looked at Alvarez.
“My brother cried at Lucas’s funeral.”
“So did your father.”
That silenced me.
Later that afternoon, Daniel returned with more information.
The key from the nursery opened a private safe-deposit facility located beneath a law office in downtown Syracuse.
Lucas had rented the box under a holding company.
Inside were documents, cash, and another drive.
But the most important item was a handwritten ledger.
Dates.
Amounts.
Initials.
Transactions.
Lucas had been building a case.
The ledger showed that over eighteen months, Ethan moved almost $1.7 million through consulting companies connected to Baldwin Development.
“Dad received money?” I asked.
Daniel shook his head.
“Not directly.”
“Then why use his companies?”
“To disguise the source.”
Robert pointed toward one column.
“These payments came from competitors of Gallagher Systems.”
Industrial espionage.
My brother had been selling company information.
Not once.
Repeatedly.
“He betrayed Lucas for money.”
“Yes.”
I looked at the numbers.
“Enough to cover his gambling debts.”
“More than enough.”
“Then why keep doing it?”
Nobody answered.
Greed didn’t need a reason.
The ledger also revealed something stranger.
Three payments had gone to C. Baldwin.
Courtney.
Fifty thousand dollars each.
When confronted, she admitted Ethan had paid her.
Not to marry Charles.
To spy on him.
According to her, Ethan believed Charles was hiding assets that had belonged to my mother.
That got my attention.
“My mother?”
Daniel went still.
“What assets?”
Courtney claimed Ethan told her our mother had created a trust before her death.
A trust meant for Ethan and me.
Charles supposedly never distributed it.
I shook my head.
“Mom didn’t have that kind of money.”
Daniel looked uncomfortable.
“What?”
“Your mother inherited property.”
I stared at him.
“How do you know?”
“Lucas asked me to investigate.”
“Why?”
“Because Ethan told him about the trust.”
My head began to ache.
Everyone knew pieces of my family except me.
“How much?”
“At the time of her death, around six million dollars.”
I almost stopped breathing.
“And Dad?”
“Was trustee.”
“Where is the money?”
“We don’t know.”
I thought about Charles’s developments.
His first major project began two years after Mom died.
I had always believed he built his fortune himself.
What if he hadn’t?
“What if Dad used Mom’s money?”
Daniel didn’t answer.
He didn’t need to.
For years, I had believed Lucas disliked my father because they were too similar.
Now I realized Lucas may have discovered something far uglier.
My father’s fortune might have been built using money intended for his children.
And Ethan had found out.
Maybe that was where everything started.
Not with Gallagher Systems.
With our mother.
That evening, a nurse helped me shower.
I stood beneath warm water and cried so quietly she pretended not to notice.
When I returned to bed, there was a voicemail from Charles.
He had been released on bail.
His voice sounded tired.
“Emma, please talk to me.”
I almost deleted it.
Then he continued.
“Your brother is dangerous.”
I froze.
“I know you think I’m the villain. Maybe I deserve that. But you don’t understand what Ethan has done.”
He paused.
“Lucas came to me seven weeks before the accident. He showed me evidence. He wanted us to go to the police together.”
My heartbeat accelerated.
“I said no.”
A ragged breath.
“That was my mistake.”
Then Charles said something I didn’t expect.
“I was protecting you.”
I almost threw the phone.
Every cruel person eventually claimed their cruelty was protection.
But Charles kept speaking.
“Lucas found out Ethan had taken money from Gallagher Systems. He also found out Ethan had discovered the trust your mother left you.”
My grip tightened.
“He threatened me.”
Another pause.
“He said if I didn’t help him gain control of Lucas’s company, he would expose what I did with your mother’s money.”
So it was true.
Dad had stolen from us.
But the voicemail wasn’t finished.
“I thought Lucas’s death solved the problem.”
My blood went cold.
Then Charles corrected himself.
“That sounded wrong. I mean I thought Ethan would stop.”
He breathed shakily.
“He didn’t.”
The next words barely registered.
“He brought me the forged will. He told me if I could get you out of the house before the twins were born, he could take care of the rest.”
My hand flew to my stomach.
Take care of the rest.
“What does that mean?” I whispered.
Charles’s voice dropped.
“I didn’t ask.”
Tears filled my eyes.
My own father hadn’t asked.
“He told me nobody would hurt you. He said we only needed to scare you.”
Then his voice cracked.
“When your water broke, I realized I had made a terrible mistake.”
I stared at the wall.
A terrible mistake.
As though dragging his pregnant daughter by the hair was a paperwork error.
“I know you’ll probably never forgive me.”
Correct.
“But please listen now.”
His voice became urgent.
“Ethan didn’t create the forged will.”
I sat up.
“He got it from someone inside Daniel’s office.”
My eyes went toward the hallway.
Daniel was at the nurses’ station speaking to Robert.
Charles continued.
“Someone close to Lucas has been helping Ethan for months.”
The voicemail ended.
I immediately played it for Detective Alvarez.
Within an hour, Daniel’s law firm began an internal audit.
By midnight, they found the leak.
A paralegal named Rebecca Sloan had accessed Lucas’s estate documents fourteen times.
She had also received $90,000 through a shell company.
Police went to her apartment.
It was empty.
Her car was gone.
Her phone had been turned off.
But she had left something behind.
A handwritten note on the kitchen counter.
Only one sentence.
You’re looking at the wrong brother.
When Alvarez showed me the photograph, I frowned.
“I only have one brother.”
She studied me carefully.
“Are you certain?”
I almost laughed.
Then I remembered something my mother once said.
I had been nine.
She was crying in the kitchen after an argument with Dad.
I asked what was wrong.
She hugged me and whispered:
“Some families survive because they keep secrets. Ours survives because nobody asks questions.”
I had forgotten those words for almost twenty-five years.
Now they came back perfectly.
Daniel arrived at dawn carrying a copy of my mother’s trust documents.
He looked shaken.
“There’s a beneficiary we didn’t know about.”
My mouth went dry.
“Who?”
He placed the page in front of me.
Three children were listed.
Emma Baldwin.
Ethan Baldwin.
And a third name I had never seen.
Michael Grant Baldwin.
Born fourteen months before me.
I stared at the paper.
“My parents had another child?”
Daniel nodded.
“What happened to him?”
“We don’t know.”
But somebody did.
Because at 7:41 that morning, a man entered a police station in Rochester carrying Lucas Gallagher’s missing laptop.
He placed it on the front desk.
Then he gave the officer his name.
Michael Baldwin.
May you like
And said:
“I’m Emma Gallagher’s brother.”
Related Stories
