For several seconds Derek did not understand Ruiz’s last word.
Marjorie.
His mother.
Richard had contacted the pharmacy consultant looking for the same sedative he had obtained around the time Thomas’s condition deteriorated.
“For Mom?”
“That is what the consultant believes.”
Derek stood.
“Where is she?”
“We don’t know.”
“You’ve been tracing her.”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“Her phone is off. Her vehicle was abandoned near Kingman.”
Derek felt anger and fear arrive together.
“She told me Richard couldn’t reach her.”
“She may have been wrong.”
Olivia moved closer.
“Could Richard already have her?”
Ruiz did not answer immediately.
“That is one possibility.”
Derek began pacing.
For days, he had wanted Marjorie to surrender.
Wanted her stopped.
Wanted her forced to answer.
Now the idea of Richard dosing her the way Thomas had been dosed twisted his stomach.
He hated that he cared.
He hated that part of him still pictured her making pancakes on Saturday mornings.
Driving him to school.
Sitting beside his hospital bed after the car crash.
Calling him when his first serious relationship ended.
The woman who stole from him existed beside the mother who raised him.
Neither erased the other.
Thomas had known that would be the hardest part.
Olivia said quietly, “You can want her arrested and alive.”
Derek stopped.
She understood without being asked.
Ruiz nodded.
“We do too.”
Samuel entered carrying one of the copied trust files.
“Federal analysts found a communication log.”
“What kind?”
“Stillwater account access attempts.”
Derek turned.
“Someone tried to open it?”
“Three times.”
“When?”
“Once six years ago. Once eleven months ago. Once yesterday.”
Robert frowned.
“From where?”
“The first came through an attorney’s office connected to Richard.”
“Second?”
“A proxy server.”
“And yesterday?”
Samuel looked toward Derek.
“Phoenix.”
Derek’s pulse quickened.
“Richard?”
“Likely.”
“Could he tell we successfully opened it?”
“Possibly.”
“Then he knows the records are out.”
“Yes.”
Robert stood.
“That makes Marjorie useless to him.”
Derek looked over.
“Meaning?”
“If Richard wanted her because she could lead him to the account, that reason is gone.”
Olivia’s face tightened.
“And if he thinks she can testify against him…”
Robert nodded.
Derek grabbed his phone.
“Call her.”
Ruiz shook her head.
“From a controlled line.”
They dialed Marjorie’s number.
Straight to voicemail.
Again.
Nothing.
Then Robert said, “Try the old intermediary.”
Everyone looked at him.
“What intermediary?” Derek asked.
“The one Marjorie used to contact me.”
Ruiz stepped closer.
“Name?”
Robert hesitated.
“Grace Holloway.”
“Who is she?”
“Marjorie’s cousin.”
Derek frowned.
“Aunt Grace?”
“Not technically your aunt,” Robert said.
Derek ignored that.
Grace lived outside Flagstaff. She was one of those extended relatives who appeared at funerals, Christmas parties and major birthdays.
Quiet.
Widowed.
Never involved in family arguments.
Or so Derek thought.
“You used Grace to communicate with Mom?”
“For years.”
Ruiz was already searching.
Grace Holloway’s listed number still worked.
She answered on the fourth ring.
Ruiz identified herself.
Grace became immediately guarded.
“I don’t know where Marjorie is.”
“We didn’t ask yet.”
Silence.
Derek looked at Ruiz.
That was enough.
Ruiz asked, “When did you last speak to her?”
“Yesterday.”
“What time?”
“Morning.”
“What did she say?”
“That she had made a mess.”
Derek closed his eyes.
Grace continued reluctantly.
“She asked whether I still had the little trailer near Williams.”
“Do you?”
“Yes.”
“Did you give her access?”
Another silence.
“Yes.”
Derek whispered, “She’s there.”
Ruiz gestured toward agents.
Vehicles began moving within minutes.
Grace gave directions.
An old travel trailer parked on private land near Williams, Arizona, isolated behind pines and scrub.
Marjorie had used it once years earlier after Thomas died, telling Derek she needed solitude.
Maybe she had always known it as a place to disappear.
Derek insisted on traveling with the team.
Ruiz initially refused.
Then circumstances changed.
Grace received a call.
Marjorie.
Ruiz had her answer on speaker.
“Grace?”
Marjorie sounded weak.
Grace looked toward investigators.
“Yes.”
“I need you to do something.”
“What?”
“If Derek calls, tell him I’m sorry.”
Derek’s stomach dropped.
Grace’s eyes filled.
“Marjorie, where are you?”
“You know.”
“Are you alone?”
A pause.
“No.”
Derek clenched his fists.
Grace followed Ruiz’s written prompt.
“Who’s with you?”
Another pause.
“My brother.”
Richard.
Marjorie’s breathing sounded slow.
Too slow.
Derek looked at Ruiz.
Sedative.
Grace said, “What happened?”
“Richard came last night.”
Marjorie’s words slurred slightly.
“He said we needed to leave.”
“Did you take something?”
“I’m tired.”
Derek stepped toward the phone.
Ruiz stopped him.
Grace continued.
“What did Richard give you?”
“Nothing.”
Then a quieter voice in the background.
Richard.
“That’s enough.”
The line went dead.
Ruiz moved instantly.
The response team drove north.
Derek rode in the second vehicle beside Olivia and Robert.
No one spoke much.
Halfway there, Derek said, “I want to hate her.”
Olivia looked toward him.
“It would be easier.”
“Yes.”
“But you don’t.”
“No.”
Robert stared out the window.
“I hated Marjorie for years.”
Derek turned.
“Past tense?”
Robert thought about it.
“I don’t know what I feel anymore.”
“That makes two of us.”
Robert gave a tired nod.
“I spent so long making her the reason I couldn’t come home that I didn’t have to face the fact that I chose not to.”
Olivia’s jaw tightened.
Robert continued.
“She manipulated me. Richard threatened me. Victor terrified me.”
He looked at his daughter.
“But I still chose.”
Olivia said nothing.
Robert’s voice softened.
“I’m trying to stop hiding from that.”
Derek looked down.
The sentence applied to all of them.
Responsibility did not erase coercion.
Coercion did not erase responsibility.
They reached the property before sunset.
The trailer sat among tall pines near a dry clearing.
No vehicle was visible.
Ruiz ordered Derek, Olivia and Robert to remain behind the outer perimeter.
Derek hated every second.
Agents approached quietly.
No movement.
The trailer door stood slightly open.
Ruiz entered with two others.
Seconds passed.
Then her voice came over the radio.
“Female located. Breathing.”
Derek closed his eyes.
Olivia gripped his arm.
Another call.
“No male suspect.”
Richard had fled.
Marjorie was carried out on a stretcher.
Derek barely recognized her.
Her skin was pale. Hair tangled. One wrist bruised.
An oxygen mask covered her face.
He started forward.
An agent stopped him.
“Let medics work.”
Derek stood ten yards away while paramedics treated the woman who had spent his childhood treating every scraped knee like an emergency.
Her eyelids fluttered.
She saw him.
Even beneath the oxygen mask, he recognized the shape of his name.
Derek.
He did not go closer.
Not yet.
Investigators searched the trailer.
They found Richard’s fingerprints.
A used syringe.
Pill fragments.
Two disposable phones.
And one printed copy of the Stillwater access structure.
Richard had known exactly what he needed.
He simply arrived too late.
Ruiz emerged holding an evidence bag.
Inside was a handwritten note.
Derek recognized Richard’s writing from childhood birthday cards.
M—
YOU SHOULD HAVE FINISHED WHAT YOU STARTED WITH THOMAS.
Derek felt cold.
That line changed something.
Richard believed Marjorie had begun the process of impairing Thomas.
Richard had taken it further.
How much further remained to be proven.
Marjorie was flown to a hospital.
Tests confirmed a powerful sedative in her system.
Not enough to kill her by itself.
But dangerous given her age and an existing heart condition.
Derek sat outside the intensive-care unit with Olivia.
Robert remained with Ruiz answering questions.
“You saved her,” Olivia said.
Derek looked toward the closed doors.
“The investigators saved her.”
“You kept pushing them to find her.”
“I almost ignored the call.”
“But you didn’t.”
He stared at the floor.
“What happens when she wakes up?”
“She answers for what she did.”
“You make that sound simple.”
“It isn’t.”
Olivia turned toward him.
“Saving someone does not mean forgiving them.”
Derek looked at her.
“And forgiving someone doesn’t mean trusting them.”
“No.”
“Are you talking about Mom?”
Olivia’s expression softened.
“Not only.”
Derek understood.
Them.
Their marriage.
He wanted to ask whether forgiveness was possible.
He did not.
He had spent too long demanding emotional outcomes before earning them.
Hours later, Marjorie woke.
A doctor allowed Derek inside for five minutes.
She looked smaller in the hospital bed.
Older.
Without makeup, without controlled posture, without the force she carried into every family room, she resembled someone Derek had never met.
Her eyes opened.
“Derek.”
He stood beside the bed.
“Richard drugged you.”
“I know.”
“Did you know he might?”
“No.”
“You knew what he did to Dad.”
Her eyes filled.
“Not everything.”
“You knew enough.”
“Yes.”
Derek breathed slowly.
“Did Richard kill him?”
Marjorie closed her eyes.
“I don’t know.”
“Did you ever see Richard change Dad’s pills?”
“No.”
“Did you know he had sedatives?”
“Later.”
“How much later?”
“After Thomas was hospitalized.”
Derek’s anger rose.
“And you said nothing.”
“I was afraid.”
He almost turned away.
Marjorie whispered, “That isn’t an excuse.”
Derek stopped.
She continued.
“It’s only the truth.”
He looked back.
“Why did Richard come to the trailer?”
“He wanted me to help identify Thomas’s phrase.”
“You knew I might remember it.”
“Yes.”
“Did you tell him?”
“No.”
“Why?”
Her mouth trembled.
“Because for once I wanted to stop helping him.”
Derek did not reward the sentence.
One refusal could not balance fifteen years.
“What happened?”
“We argued.”
Marjorie looked toward the monitor.
“He said the repository would destroy him.”
“And Victor?”
“Victor is already preparing to leave the country.”
Derek leaned closer.
“How do you know?”
“Richard said Victor would abandon everyone once the account opened.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know.”
“Think.”
Marjorie looked exhausted.
“Richard said something about a plane.”
“What plane?”
“A private strip.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know.”
Derek felt frustration rise.
Marjorie added, “He said Victor had used it before when things went bad in Nevada.”
Nevada.
Derek thought of Stillwater.
Samuel.
Victor’s shell properties.
“What else?”
“Richard kept repeating a name.”
“What name?”
Marjorie struggled to remember.
“Black Mesa.”
Derek stepped back.
“I’ll tell Ruiz.”
He turned toward the door.
Marjorie said, “Derek.”
He stopped.
“I’m glad you found the account before Richard did.”
Derek looked over his shoulder.
“You don’t get credit for being glad someone stopped what you helped start.”
Pain crossed her face.
“I know.”
He left.
Ruiz immediately recognized Black Mesa as the name of an airfield property held through one of Victor Dane’s companies outside southern Nevada.
Federal authorities mobilized.
Derek remained at the hospital.
Part of him wanted to go.
Another part understood that he no longer needed to stand beside every action to believe it was happening.
Near midnight, Ruiz called.
“We found the airfield.”
“Victor?”
“Not yet.”
“Richard?”
“No.”
“What did you find?”
“Aircraft fuel records. Travel documents. Cash.”
Derek closed his eyes.
“They’re running.”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“We’re working on it.”
Then Ruiz added, “There’s something else.”
Derek waited.
“One flight plan was filed for tomorrow morning.”
“Destination?”
“It was changed twice.”
“Final destination?”
“Mexico.”
Robert, standing nearby, went still.
That country had appeared throughout his years in hiding.
Derek asked, “Can you stop the plane?”
“If they use that plane.”
Victor would expect surveillance.
Richard would know too.
The flight might be bait.
Ruiz continued.
“We found surveillance images at the airfield.”
“Of who?”
“You, Olivia, Robert, Marjorie.”
Derek’s stomach tightened.
“All of us?”
“Yes.”
“One photo is from today.”
Derek looked around the hospital corridor.
“Today?”
“Taken outside the hospital.”
Olivia stepped closer.
Someone had been watching them after Marjorie’s rescue.
Ruiz said, “Move away from the windows.”
Derek did.
Then she said something worse.
“The image isn’t focused on you.”
He frowned.
“Who is it focused on?”
“Olivia.”
Derek turned.
Olivia stood less than six feet away.
Ruiz continued.
“There’s a handwritten note beneath her photograph.”
“What does it say?”
Ruiz read it.
ROBERT WILL ALWAYS MOVE FOR HER.
Derek looked toward Robert.
His face went pale.
Victor had spent fifteen years learning Robert Bennett’s weakness.
And now that every financial lock had failed, he intended to use the one method that had worked from the beginning.
Olivia.
Click here to continue reading: PART 15: Victor Turns Olivia Into His Final Leverage, Forcing Robert to Confront the Fear That Kept Him Hidden for Fifteen Years
When a Declined Card Turned a Grocery Checkout Into the First Crack in Derek Hale’s Marriage and Family
Part 14 of 18
