Chapter 6 - The Price of Betrayal
I stared at the disconnected call.
For several seconds, I couldn't move.
Then I called Maya back.
No answer.
I tried again.
Straight to voicemail.
Rebecca watched me carefully.
"Don't go looking for her."
I put the phone down.
"She sounded terrified."
"That may be genuine. It may also be another attempt to draw you into their plan."
I hated that both possibilities made sense.
We contacted Detective Reed.
She asked for the exact time of the call and a copy of the recording.
Then she sent officers to check Maya's apartment.
By evening, we learned Maya had left the building carrying two bags.
The landlord said she appeared upset.
Nobody knew where she had gone.
For the first time, I stopped seeing the situation as a simple betrayal.
There was something larger happening.
And I was standing in the middle of it.
The next morning, Rebecca invited me to her office.
Marcus was already there.
So was Grace.
Detective Reed joined us by phone.
Rebecca spread several diagrams across the conference table.
"We've traced some of the companies connected to Harborstone."
I looked at the page.
There were names I didn't recognize.
Seaside Capital Holdings.
Cove Property Management.
North Atlantic Residential.
All connected through overlapping directors and addresses.
Rebecca pointed to three coastal properties.
"These were acquired over the past four years."
I frowned.
"What does that have to do with me?"
"Some of the transactions show the same warning signs as your attempted sale."
My stomach tightened.
"Forged signatures?"
"Inconsistent notarizations, questionable authorizations, and unusual payment arrangements."
Marcus leaned forward.
"So Caleb may have done this to other families?"
Rebecca nodded.
"Investigators are examining that possibility."
I stared at the addresses.
One was only two streets from Dad's duplex.
I recognized it immediately.
"Mrs. Patterson's house."
Grace looked surprised.
"You know her?"
"She used to bring us cookies when we were kids."
I remembered an older woman with bright red glasses and a laugh that could fill a room.
She had sold her home two years earlier.
Dad told me she had moved into assisted living.
I had never thought much about it.
Rebecca looked at the transaction records.
"Her property was purchased through a related company."
I felt sick.
"Did she agree to sell?"
"We don't know yet."
I leaned back.
Dad's house wasn't an isolated target.
It might have been the latest in a series of stolen properties.
And Maya had been involved.
At noon, Detective Reed called.
They had located Maya.
She was staying in a small motel outside the city.
An officer had spoken with her.
She was physically unharmed.
But she refused to give a statement without an attorney.
I felt two emotions at once.
Relief.
And anger at myself for feeling it.
That afternoon, I went to see Mom's sister, Aunt Teresa.
She had helped raise Marcus and me after Mom died.
She lived in a little blue house with a garden full of lavender.
When I arrived, she opened the door before I could knock.
Then she hugged me.
I held on longer than usual.
She didn't ask questions.
She simply led me into the kitchen.
A bowl of chicken soup waited on the table.
"You haven't been eating," she said.
I managed a weak smile.
"How can you tell?"
"Because I know your face."
I sat down.
For twenty minutes, I told her everything.
The affair.
The forged documents.
The hidden box.
Dad's video.
When I finished, she sat silently.
Then she reached for my hand.
"Your father loved you more than you ever understood."
I looked down.
"I know that now."
"He worried about your heart."
I swallowed.
"He should have worried about my common sense."
Teresa shook her head.
"No. Loving someone isn't a character flaw. Betraying someone is."
Her words settled somewhere deep inside me.
Then she opened a drawer.
She took out a photograph.
It showed Mom and Dad standing outside the duplex on the day they bought it.
They looked impossibly young.
Mom wore a yellow dress.
Dad had paint on his jeans.
Both were laughing.
"Your mother was terrified when they bought that house," Teresa said.
"Why?"
"They barely had enough money for the deposit."
I smiled faintly.
"Dad never mentioned that."
"Of course not. He wanted you boys to think he had everything figured out."
She laughed softly.
Then her eyes filled with tears.
"Your mother told me she didn't care whether they ever became rich. She just wanted a place where her children would always be welcome."
I looked at the photograph.
That was the house Caleb wanted.
Not just its market value.
Its promise.
For the first time, I felt something stronger than grief.
Purpose.
I would protect that promise.
Not because I wanted revenge.
Because I wanted my family to have the future my parents had worked to create.
That evening, Rebecca called with another development.
Investigators had interviewed Mrs. Patterson.
She was eighty-four and living in a retirement community.
She told them she had never willingly sold her property.
She believed she had signed paperwork authorizing repairs after a storm.
Instead, ownership had transferred to a company connected to Caleb.
I sat in silence.
"Can she get it back?"
"Her attorney is reviewing the available remedies. The circumstances are serious."
I looked toward Dad's photograph on my shelf.
"How many others?"
"We don't know."
Rebecca paused.
"But your evidence may help establish a pattern."
I thought about all the families whose homes held memories like mine.
Graduations.
Birthdays.
Sunday dinners.
The ordinary moments that made a house a home.
Caleb hadn't just targeted property.
He had targeted trust.
At eight, someone knocked on my apartment door.
I checked the peephole.
Maya.
She stood alone.
Her makeup was smeared.
She wore a gray hoodie and jeans.
For four years, I had opened doors for her without hesitation.
Now I stood frozen.
She knocked again.
"Ethan, please."
I called Rebecca.
She told me not to meet Maya alone.
I informed Maya through the closed door that I would only speak with her through our attorneys or investigators.
She started crying.
"I deserve that."
I said nothing.
Then she slipped a small envelope beneath the door.
"I brought something," she whispered. "It proves Caleb planned more than the duplex."
I stared at the envelope.
"Maya, leave."
Her voice broke.
"I'm sorry."
Footsteps moved down the hallway.
I waited until Rebecca and Detective Reed had been informed before touching anything.
The envelope was collected as evidence.
Later, Reed called me.
Inside was a flash drive.
And a handwritten note from Maya.
"Find the account under Daniel Walker's name."
I stared at the message Rebecca forwarded to me.
My father had been dead eighteen months.
Yet someone was still using his name.
When investigators traced the account, they found something almost unbelievable.
More than two million dollars had moved through it after Dad's death.
And I was listed as one of the authorized beneficiaries.
I had never heard of the account.
May you like
I had never received the money.
But suddenly, the attempted theft of the duplex looked like one small piece of a much larger crime.
