Chapter 15 - The Hotel Room
Police found Derek twelve hours later.
Alive.
Barely.
He was in a roadside motel outside Harrisburg under a fake name that wasn’t particularly creative.
Daniel Brooks.
He had always been terrible at planning.
Detective Kowalski told me Derek had suffered a deep cut across his forearm and a concussion. According to Derek, two men had confronted him in the parking garage after he tried to meet an attorney.
He escaped by running through the train station and catching a bus east.
Then he hid.
The police weren’t sure how much of his story to believe.
Neither was I.
Sarah refused to take Chloe or Liam to the hospital.
“They’ve seen enough,” she said.
I agreed.
I didn’t want to go either.
Then Derek asked for me.
Only me.
I sat in my car outside the hospital for ten minutes before walking inside.
He looked awful.
A bandage circled his head. His left eye was swollen purple. His arm was wrapped from wrist to elbow.
For once, Derek didn’t look like the golden child.
He looked mortal.
“Hannah.”
I stayed near the door.
“You have five minutes.”
His eyes filled.
“I’m sorry.”
“Four minutes and fifty-five seconds.”
He looked away.
“I deserve that.”
“Yes.”
He swallowed.
“Did Chloe find you?”
“She did.”
His shoulders sagged in relief.
“Thank God.”
“No. Don’t do that.”
He looked confused.
“Do what?”
“Use one responsible decision to erase twenty years of selfish ones.”
“I’m not.”
“You sent a terrified child across Pittsburgh because you were too scared to call the police.”
His eyes dropped.
“I thought they were watching me.”
“Who?”
“Gavin’s people.”
I crossed my arms.
“Start talking.”
Derek took a shaky breath.
He explained that Gavin Mercer entered his life three years earlier promising access to investors.
At first, Gavin really did provide small amounts of money.
Twenty thousand here.
Thirty thousand there.
Enough to keep Derek believing the next business deal would save him.
Then Gavin began asking questions about family assets.
Derek told him everything.
Grandpa Arthur.
The trust.
My inheritance.
The forged documents.
Dad’s role.
All of it.
“You told a stranger our family committed financial crimes?”
“I was drunk.”
“That’s not an explanation.”
“I know.”
He continued.
Gavin realized Richard was terrified of prosecution.
That made Dad easy to control.
Then the settlement happened.
My parents lost their house.
My stolen inheritance was restored.
And suddenly I had something Gavin wanted.
Cash.
Property.
A clean financial profile.
“So he told you to forge my name.”
Derek started crying.
Not dramatically.
Not like my mother.
Quietly.
Ugly.
“I did it.”
There it was.
No excuse.
“I copied your signature from one of the trust settlement pages.”
I stared at him.
“Why?”
“Because he said if I didn’t, he’d send everything to Sarah’s attorney and I’d lose the kids.”
“You should lose access to the kids if you commit crimes around them.”
“I know.”
“Stop saying you know.”
He closed his mouth.
I stepped closer.
“You forged my signature to save yourself.”
“Yes.”
“You pledged my home.”
“Yes.”
“You let Gavin send people to photograph it.”
Derek looked sick.
“I didn’t know about that.”
“But you gave him the address.”
“Yes.”
I felt something inside me settle.
Not anger.
Finality.
“You understand we are never going back, right?”
He looked up.
“What?”
“You and me.”
“Hannah—”
“I might help make sure you don’t get killed. I might help Chloe and Liam. I might tell the truth if Gavin hurt you.”
Tears spilled down his face.
“But you are never getting your sister back.”
His mouth trembled.
I continued.
“You stole my car. You lived on my trust money. You forged my name. You helped a criminal target my home.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I believe you’re sorry.”
That surprised him.
Then I finished.
“I just don’t believe being sorry creates a debt I owe you.”
Derek covered his face.
I let him cry.
After a minute, he reached toward the bedside table.
“There’s something else.”
He handed me a folded piece of motel stationery.
A username.
A password.
“What is this?”
“Cloud storage.”
“What’s in it?”
“Everything Gavin sent me.”
“Why didn’t you give it to police?”
“I did. That’s a copy.”
“What kind of everything?”
“Emails. recordings. contracts.”
He looked toward the hospital door.
“And a list.”
“What list?”
“People Gavin has done this to before.”
My pulse accelerated.
“How many?”
“At least seventeen.”
“Seventeen families?”
“Small business owners. Retirees. People with property.”
Derek’s voice dropped.
“He finds someone desperate. Gives them enough money to get trapped. Then he takes whatever their family owns.”
I stared at the paper.
This wasn’t about us.
Not anymore.
Derek leaned back against the pillow.
“There’s one name on the list you’re going to recognize.”
I looked at him.
“Who?”
“Harold Miller.”
The crooked notary who had helped my father steal my trust fund.
“What about him?”
Derek swallowed.
“Gavin wasn’t introduced to Dad through me.”
I waited.
“Harold introduced him.”
My entire understanding shifted.
“How long ago?”
“Almost ten years.”
The year Grandpa Arthur died.
The year my inheritance disappeared.
The year my signature was first forged.
Derek looked at me with genuine fear.
May you like
“Hannah, Gavin didn’t discover our family’s secrets.”
“He was there from the beginning.”
