Chapter 4 - The Phone Call
The prosecutor who joined us half an hour later hated the idea. The state investigator hated it more. The financial crimes team understood exactly what it was worth.
They already had evidence the SUV had been tampered with — divers pulled the wire off my restraint shortly after sunrise, and traffic cameras placed Marcus buying similar hardware days earlier, along with a service camera showing his car near the river road that same week.
Still not enough to prove everything. So we let him keep walking.
Not freely. Every sensitive Calloway transfer was silently frozen behind the scenes. Any signature he made from that point forward would create evidence, not ownership.
At one o'clock, Marcus walked into a private bank office in Ashford Bend, dressed in a dark suit, not grieving publicly yet. Isabelle arrived separately — which surprised me, until I understood her role. She held a small family interest inherited from her mother's side, nearly meaningless under ordinary circumstances.
Not meaningless today. Marcus needed a blood relative to co-sign, certifying that I'd intended for him to manage my voting rights.
My sister. My half-sister. The girl I taught to drive. The girl whose first apartment deposit I paid.
She sat beside my husband and signed.
I didn't cry. I think I'd used up that version of myself in the river.
Then Marcus signed an affidavit declaring me missing and "reasonably presumed deceased." He knew rescue crews hadn't recovered a body. He signed anyway.
Next came the emergency sale authorization for the Thornwood terminal. He picked up the pen.
That's when our general counsel walked into the room.
Marcus looked up, irritated. "You're late."
The attorney closed the door behind him. "I was waiting for confirmation."
"Of what?"
He set a document on the table. A temporary court order freezing the entire transaction.
Marcus stared at it. Isabelle went white. "What is this?"
"Asset-protection order."
"On whose request?"
The attorney looked directly at Marcus. "Renee Calloway's."
Silence. Marcus actually laughed. "That's impossible."
Then his phone rang. My name lit up the screen.
He stared at it like it might bite him. I watched through the security feed from another floor as he finally answered, slowly. "Renee?"
"Hi, Marcus."
He stood so fast his chair cracked against the wall. Isabelle's hand flew to her mouth.
"You're alive."
"Apparently."
"How?"
"That question's probably more useful for the police than it is for me."
His voice cracked. "Renee, listen to me—"
"No."
"I thought—"
"You thought I was dead because you watched me sink into the Thornwood River."
Isabelle whispered, barely audible, "Hang up."
"I heard that too, Isabelle," I said. "So did you."
My sister went rigid.
"I saw you on the bank," I told her.
Silence. Marcus started for the door just as two investigators walked in — no theatrics, no raised voices. They simply informed him he was being detained for questioning in connection with the vehicle incident and suspected corporate fraud.
Marcus demanded a lawyer. Isabelle started crying.
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But Marcus's father was nowhere in the building. And we still didn't have the proof Caleb had spent fourteen years chasing — the thread that connected all of this back to our parents.
So the story wasn't finished yet.
