Chapter 6 - THOMAS SAID HE NEVER SAW HER
Emily confronted her father at his office.
He was sixty-six now.
Silver hair.
Controlled voice.
Same habit of straightening papers before difficult conversations.
He looked genuinely shocked when Emily said Rachel was alive.
Too shocked?
Emily could not tell.
“She contacted you.”
Thomas frowned.
“No.”
“She told Sarah you agreed to meet.”
“I didn’t.”
Emily placed a printed text on his desk.
Thomas read it.
His face hardened.
“That isn’t from me.”
“Then who?”
“I don’t know.”
Emily laughed bitterly.
“You expect me to believe that?”
He stood.
“I expect you to remember I spent twelve years believing my daughter abandoned us too.”
“Did she?”
Thomas went still.
Emily stepped closer.
“Did Rachel find something at Carter Mobility?”
His silence answered enough.
Then he sat back down.
“I made a mistake.”
Emily stared.
“What kind?”
He rubbed both hands over his face.
“The recall.”
There it was.
Thomas had delayed it.
Three months.
Long enough to protect acquisition negotiations.
Then a child in Indiana was injured when a chair rolled during transfer.
The company settled privately.
Rachel discovered the internal timeline.
She threatened to go outside the company.
Thomas begged her not to.
“I told her she’d destroy thousands of jobs.”
Emily’s voice shook.
“And?”
“She said one injured child was already too many.”
Thomas looked toward the window.
“Then she disappeared.”
“Did you threaten her?”
“I threatened to cut her off financially.”
Emily closed her eyes.
Not murder.
Still betrayal.
“Did you know she was pregnant?”
Thomas looked stunned.
May you like
“No.”
That answer, Emily believed.
