Chapter 14 - The Dead Mother
Patricia Reed was alive.
Not only alive.
She lived forty miles away.
That discovery changed the shape of everything.
Sophie sat at Margaret’s conference table staring at the address.
“He showed me a picture of her grave.”
Cavanaugh looked up.
“Do you have it?”
“Yes.”
The photograph was still on Sophie’s phone.
A cemetery.
Flowers.
A stone engraved PATRICIA ANN REED.
Beloved Mother.
The dates made her fifty-six when she supposedly died.
Cavanaugh sent the image to another investigator.
Twenty minutes later, we had the answer.
The headstone existed.
It belonged to Patricia Ann Reed.
But not Mason’s mother.
A different woman.
Different county.
No relation.
Sophie laughed.
A horrible, broken sound.
“He took me to a cemetery.”
I remembered that trip.
Mason had come home afterward quiet and emotional.
Sophie had told me he finally trusted her enough to share his grief.
Now she pressed both palms over her face.
“I stood in front of a stranger’s grave and held him while he cried.”
Rachel sat beside her.
“He likes funerals.”
We all turned.
“What?” I asked.
Rachel’s face had gone pale.
“He told me his father died twice.”
“That makes no sense.”
“He gave me two different stories. I thought I remembered one wrong.”
Cavanaugh wrote something.
Patricia Reed had been a notary until her commission expired six years earlier.
She also had a fraud conviction from fifteen years ago related to falsified vehicle titles.
The family pattern was no longer subtle.
“Is Erica really his sister?” Sophie asked.
“Yes,” Cavanaugh said. “Birth records confirm it.”
“Did their mother help them?”
“We don’t know.”
“Her seal is on a forged document.”
“A seal resembling hers.”
Sophie slapped both hands on the table.
“Can everyone stop talking like this is a philosophy class?”
Margaret almost smiled.
Cavanaugh did not.
“We are locating her.”
They found Patricia before sunset.
She lived in a small ranch house with overgrown hedges.
Investigators questioned her.
We were not present.
What she said came later.
At first, she denied everything.
Then they showed her the forged notary seal.
She said anyone could have copied it.
They showed her financial records connecting an old account to Northstar.
She claimed Mason had used her information.
Then they showed her a photograph recovered from storage.
Patricia, Erica, and Mason sitting together at a restaurant three months earlier.
On the table between them was a folder bearing Sophie’s name.
That was when Patricia asked for a lawyer.
Sophie heard all of this from Cavanaugh.
She looked at me afterward.
“How many people knew?”
“Too many.”
“My whole marriage was a room full of people laughing behind a door.”
I understood why she felt that way.
But the evidence did not show laughter.
It showed planning.
There was a difference.
Cruelty can be impulsive.
Planning is patient.
Patricia’s involvement also gave investigators something else.
A house.
A search.
A box in her garage containing old Northstar records.
Checks.
Copies of IDs.
Notary stamps.
Business registrations.
And letters from women.
Some were demands.
Some were pleas.
One came from Melissa Grant.
PLEASE STOP CONTACTING MY EMPLOYER. I HAVE GIVEN MASON EVERYTHING HE ASKED FOR.
Sophie read the copy and went silent.
Another was from Catherine Hale.
I KNOW WHO ERICA IS. IF EITHER OF YOU COMES NEAR MY FAMILY AGAIN, I GO TO THE POLICE.
Catherine had known more than anyone.
That was why Mason paid her.
Not because he feared exposure to one woman.
Because she understood the system.
At nine that night, Sophie received an email from an unfamiliar address.
No greeting.
No signature.
One sentence.
YOU STILL DON’T KNOW WHY HE NEEDED AVA.
I called Cavanaugh before Sophie could respond.
The message was traced only to a privacy service.
Could have been Mason.
Erica.
Patricia.
Anyone.
Sophie stared at it.
“What if he wanted the trust through her?”
“He couldn’t just take Ava’s interest,” Margaret said.
“What if something happened to me?”
The room went cold.
Daniel’s trust included a remainder provision.
If Sophie died before thirty-five, a portion passed into trust for any living children.
Ava.
Mason could not simply withdraw it.
But as Ava’s surviving parent, he could potentially petition to manage certain aspects of her affairs.
Margaret shook her head.
“That still doesn’t give him free access.”
“It gives him a reason to control both of us,” Sophie said.
I looked at Ava sleeping in her bassinet.
For the first time, the danger in the kitchen seemed connected to something beyond provoking me.
Then Cavanaugh called again.
Investigators had found another draft document in Patricia’s garage.
Not guardianship.
Life insurance.
A proposed policy application on Sophie.
Benefit amount:
$1,500,000.
May you like
Proposed beneficiary:
Mason Reed.
