Chapter 6 - THE FATHER WHO BURIED HIS DAUGHTER
Charles denied everything.
Then Evelyn showed him Anna’s letter.
He called it hearsay.
Then we showed him the forged dental chart.
He blamed Marjorie.
Then the DNA report.
He said the girl was still possibly manipulating circumstances around genuine biology.
That sentence was so absurd even he seemed to hear it.
“Why did you declare Isabelle dead?” I asked.
He stared out the window of his office.
Finally he said:
“Because Marjorie told me she was dead.”
“Before the body identification?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“She said Isabelle and Emily were together.”
My heart tightened.
Charles told us the first part of the truth.
Emily had not run away.
She had been living secretly with Isabelle.
My daughter knew her cousin was pregnant.
Emily was fourteen.
The father was eighteen-year-old Julian Cross, son of one of Charles’s largest business partners.
Marjorie panicked.
A pregnancy involving a minor and a powerful family could become scandal.
She hid Emily with a friend outside town.
Isabelle discovered it.
She wanted to tell me.
Charles stopped her.
“I was trying to protect Emily.”
“No. You were protecting your business relationship.”
He looked ashamed.
Good.
On the night of the crash, Isabelle took one of the company cars and went to get Emily.
They argued on the road.
The car left the highway.
Isabelle crawled out.
Emily died in the passenger seat.
Then Marjorie found Isabelle before police did.
“How?”
“Emily called her before the crash. Marjorie was following them.”
My hands went cold.
“Marjorie found our injured daughter alive.”
Charles nodded.
“And instead of taking her to a hospital—”
“She did.”
“Under a false name.”
He closed his eyes.
“Jane Doe.”
I stood.
“You knew.”
“Not immediately.”
“When?”
“Two days later.”
My vision blurred with rage.
“You knew our daughter was alive two days after the crash and let me bury someone else?”
He finally looked at me.
“Marjorie said Isabelle had brain trauma. She didn’t remember us. She said if the truth came out, Emily’s pregnancy, Julian, the cover-up—everything would become public.”
“And?”
“And the company was weeks from a merger.”
I almost struck him.
I didn’t.
I wanted every word clear.
“You traded your daughter for a merger.”
“No.”
“That is exactly what you did.”
He started crying.
I had not seen Charles cry since Isabelle’s funeral.
“She was safe with a foster family.”
“She was thirteen.”
“I thought we could bring her back later.”
“When?”
He did not answer.
Because later became one year.
Then two.
Then ten.
Then he said the sentence that revealed why later never came.
“Marjorie had something on me.”
“What?”
Charles looked at Sofia.
May you like
Then at me.
“Proof that I caused the crash.”
