Chapter 15 - CLAIRE’S BROTHERNicholas Beaumont was forty-two.
He looked nothing like Claire.
Where Claire carried tension in every movement, Nicholas seemed quiet and tired.
A scar ran from his jaw toward his neck.
He sat across from Daniel inside the sheriff’s interview room.
Claire sat separately.
“Your father told everyone you moved overseas,” Daniel said.
Nicholas smiled bitterly.
“My father told people whatever was useful.”
“Where were you?”
“Arizona. Then Nevada.”
“Why disappear?”
“Because I saw Victor tampering with Thomas Mercer’s medication.”
Daniel went still.
Thomas had died from a heart attack.
At least that was the official cause.
“What medication?”
“Blood pressure pills.”
Nicholas explained.
At nineteen, he sometimes worked for his father.
Patrick sent him to deliver documents to Victor.
One afternoon Nicholas arrived unexpectedly and saw Victor replacing tablets in a prescription bottle.
“Did you know whose medicine it was?”
“Not until later.”
“What happened?”
“Thomas died three weeks after.”
Daniel closed his eyes.
His father.
His mother forced into hiding.
Laura killed years later.
All tied to the same people.
“Why didn’t you report it?”
“I tried.”
“To your father?”
Nicholas laughed.
“That was my first mistake.”
Patrick beat him badly and threatened Claire.
Then arranged for Nicholas to leave the state.
“He told Claire I was involved in drugs.”
“Did she believe him?”
“For years.”
“How did you reconnect?”
“Last month.”
Nicholas contacted Claire after Patrick’s death.
He had spent years collecting his own evidence.
He wanted to expose Victor.
Claire refused at first.
She feared Daniel learning the truth about her connection to Laura.
“Then why now?”
Nicholas looked through the glass toward where Claire was being questioned.
“Ethan.”
Daniel’s jaw tightened.
“What about him?”
“Claire called me after the storm.”
“What did she say?”
“She said she had become our father.”
Daniel said nothing.
Nicholas continued.
“She told me what she did to Ethan.”
“Everything?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“I told her to surrender.”
Claire eventually did.
But before surrendering she went to the ranch to retrieve the second cache, believing Victor would otherwise destroy it.
That explained her return.
It didn’t forgive anything.
Daniel was clear about that.
Nicholas nodded.
“She doesn’t expect forgiveness.”
“What does she expect?”
“Consequences.”
Daniel stood.
Before leaving he asked one final question.
“Did Victor kill my father?”
“I believe so.”
“Can you prove it?”
Nicholas reached into his pocket.
An officer moved.
Nicholas slowly produced an old cassette tape.
“My father recorded conversations.”
Daniel stared.
“Patrick recorded Victor?”
“Patrick recorded everybody.”
The cassette had been hidden inside a storage unit for twenty years.
Nicholas found it after Patrick died.
Marcus arranged immediate digitization.
The recording was poor.
But the voices were recognizable.
Patrick Beaumont.
Victor Shaw.
Charles Whitmore.
They discussed Thomas.
Victor: He won’t stop digging.
Patrick: Then make him sick enough that he does.
Charles: Nobody is killing Thomas.
Patrick: Who said anything about killing?
Victor laughed.
The tape jumped.
Later:
Victor: He had a weak heart anyway.
Charles: What did you do?
Victor: Solved your problem.
Charles sounded horrified.
Charles: You idiot.
Patrick: It’s done.
The recording ended.
Daniel stared at the screen.
Charles had participated in crimes.
But apparently he had not ordered Thomas’s death.
Victor had.
The case against Victor expanded rapidly.
Attempted coercion.
Financial fraud.
Evidence tampering.
Potential homicide.
Laura’s death.
Thomas’s death.
Helen Ward’s suspicious death.
Investigators reopened all three.
Daniel returned to Blackwood Ranch at sunset.
Ethan sat beside Ruby, brushing the chestnut mare.
“Dad?”
“Yeah?”
“Is Claire coming back?”
Daniel sat on the fence.
“No.”
“Ever?”
“I don’t know.”
Ethan looked down.
“Am I bad because part of me misses her?”
Daniel’s heart broke.
“No.”
“But she was mean.”
“Yes.”
“She also made pancakes shaped like dinosaurs.”
Daniel smiled sadly.
“People can do good things and terrible things. Missing a good memory doesn’t erase the bad ones.”
Ethan considered that.
“Is she going to jail?”
“Maybe.”
“For hitting me?”
“For several things.”
Ethan brushed Ruby quietly.
Then asked:
“Did she kill Mom?”
“No.”
“You know?”
“We know more now.”
Daniel explained carefully, in child-appropriate terms, that Claire made mistakes that helped dangerous people find Laura, but Victor was responsible for chasing Laura’s car.
Ethan looked toward Atlas.
“Mom tried to stop bad people.”
“Yes.”
“She was brave.”
“Yes.”
Ruby suddenly nudged Ethan’s shoulder.
He laughed softly.
It was the first genuine laugh Daniel had heard from him since the storm.
Daniel looked at the three horses.
For years they had simply been part of the ranch.
Now each seemed tied to history.
Atlas belonged to Evelyn and Laura.
Ruby had been born the year Ethan was born.
Midnight had protected him from Victor.
Daniel made a decision.
“What?”
Ethan noticed his expression.
“I think we’re going to change this place.”
“How?”
“No more secrets.”
Ethan smiled.
But secrets were not finished with them.
That evening, Rebecca found something inside Thomas’s original will.
A clause nobody had noticed.
Blackwood North was not inherited solely by Daniel and Rebecca.
A third beneficiary was listed.
A child identified only by initials:
C.B.
Daniel stared.
Claire Beaumont.
His father had left part of Blackwood Ranch to Claire years before Daniel had ever met her.
May you like
And suddenly Daniel had to ask the most disturbing question yet.
Why had Thomas Mercer included Patrick Beaumont’s daughter in his will?
