We followed the signal west as Phoenix thinned into industrial lots, warehouses, and stretches of dark road. Police vehicles moved ahead of us without sirens. Rebecca drove because officers refused to let me follow in my own state of mind. I sat rigid in the passenger seat watching the location marker crawl across her phone.
“It stopped.”
Rebecca glanced down.
“Where?”
“Near an old quarry access road.”
She called the officer leading the response.
The marker sat still for almost two minutes.
Then moved again.
Slowly.
“Maybe she’s walking.”
“Or he found the device.”
We both knew the second possibility.
Police split at the next junction.
A helicopter had been requested but was still minutes away.
The desert beyond the road looked endless.
Finally, flashing lights appeared ahead.
A patrol unit had found the black pickup abandoned near a dirt turnout.
Passenger door open.
No Olivia.
No Leonard.
I was ordered to remain behind the cars.
I ignored that until an officer physically stopped me.
“They’re searching.”
“She could be hurt.”
“And you running into darkness helps nobody.”
I hated him for being right.
The emergency beacon was discovered twenty yards from the truck.
A small plastic device lay crushed in the dirt.
Leonard had found it.
But not immediately.
Footprints continued beyond it.
Two sets.
One larger.
One smaller.
Olivia was walking.
That meant she was conscious.
Search teams followed.
I stood beside the pickup.
Its cab smelled of sweat, dust, and stale coffee.
Blood marked the passenger door.
Not much.
Still too much.
Police found duct tape behind the seat.
A handgun in the center console.
Documents under the driver’s seat.
One carried my father’s name.
Another carried mine.
Leonard had been traveling with evidence.
Or preparing to destroy it.
Rebecca looked toward the dark hills.
“He knew this was collapsing.”
“What does he want with Olivia?”
“She knows enough to connect him to Marjorie.”
“So he kills her?”
Rebecca did not answer.
A radio crackled.
Movement spotted near a maintenance structure.
Officers ran.
Then came a shout.
Another.
A gunshot.
I moved before anyone could stop me.
Rebecca yelled my name.
I ran toward the sound.
The ground was uneven, gravel sliding beneath my shoes.
Lights swept across a low concrete building ahead.
Police shouted commands.
A man stepped into view.
Leonard.
He held Olivia in front of him.
One arm across her chest.
A gun near her ribs.
I stopped.
Everything inside me went silent.
Olivia’s face was bruised.
Blood darkened one side of her hair.
But her eyes were open.
She saw me.
Her expression changed from fear to fury.
Not at Leonard.
At me.
Because I had come too close.
“Back up!” an officer shouted.
Leonard dragged Olivia backward.
“Tell them to lower the guns!”
No one did.
His voice cracked.
“Derek!”
I froze.
“You want her alive?”
“Yes.”
“Then tell them to move.”
The officer beside me whispered, “Do not negotiate for us.”
Leonard laughed.
“This is because of you, you know.”
I stared.
“Because you finally started asking questions.”
“Let her go.”
“She should’ve stayed out of it.”
Olivia said something too quietly for me to hear.
Leonard jerked her harder.
“What did you say?”
She spoke louder.
“You’re scared of Marjorie.”
Leonard’s face twisted.
“Shut up.”
Olivia winced but continued.
“She’s going to blame all of this on you.”
Leonard’s grip tightened.
I understood what she was doing.
She was provoking him.
Creating separation between him and my mother.
“Olivia,” I said carefully.
Her eyes flicked toward me.
I tried to tell her without words: stop.
She ignored me.
“Derek found the records,” she said.
Leonard looked at me.
“What records?”
“The storage unit.”
His expression changed.
“You opened it?”
I said nothing.
He swore.
Olivia continued.
“Marjorie told police you acted alone.”
That was a lie.
A brilliant one.
Leonard stared at her.
“She what?”
“She said the forged loans were yours. The identity theft was yours. Everything.”
His breathing became ragged.
“She wouldn’t.”
Olivia laughed softly despite the gun.
“You really think she’s protecting you?”
“Shut up.”
“You watched what she did to her husband.”
Leonard went still.
So did I.
Olivia had crossed into the question that had haunted me since the storage unit.
“What happened to my father?” I asked.
Leonard looked at me.
“Not now.”
“Did you kill him?”
“No.”
The answer came too quickly.
“Did my mother?”
His eyes shifted.
That was enough.
“Leonard.”
He shook his head.
“She didn’t mean—”
He stopped.
Olivia’s eyes closed for half a second.
I felt the world narrow.
“What didn’t she mean?”
Leonard’s voice dropped.
“He was supposed to calm down.”
No one moved.
“Explain.”
“He was threatening everybody. Said he was going to police. Said he had copies.”
My mouth dried.
“What did she give him?”
Leonard shook his head.
“I never touched him.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
Officers remained frozen around us.
Leonard looked at the ground.
“She put something in the water.”
My knees almost failed.
Olivia whispered, “Derek.”
I barely heard her.
“What?”
Leonard’s face was wet with sweat.
“She wanted him sleepy. Confused. Enough to stop him from leaving.”
“What was it?”
“I don’t know.”
“You were there.”
“I didn’t know the dose.”
The words tore through me.
Dose.
He knew enough to know there was one.
“My father died.”
“I know.”
“You left.”
Leonard’s jaw tightened.
“Marjorie told me to.”
The desert seemed impossibly quiet.
I remembered the kitchen.
The glass.
My father gripping the counter.
My mother screaming.
Leonard gone.
All of it real.
All of it rearranged.
“She called an ambulance,” Leonard said quickly. “She panicked. She didn’t want him dead.”
The distinction meant nothing.
Olivia spoke.
“And afterward?”
Leonard glared at her.
She continued.
“You helped her hide the records.”
“Shut up.”
“You helped her use Derek’s identity.”
“Shut up!”
His attention shifted toward her face.
That was the opening.
Olivia drove her heel backward into his shin.
Leonard stumbled.
She dropped.
Police fired.
One shot.
Leonard spun and fell.
The gun hit the dirt.
Officers rushed him.
I ran to Olivia.
She was on her knees, hands over her head.
I stopped several feet away.
I wanted to touch her.
I did not.
“Are you hurt?”
She looked at me.
Blood ran from a cut near her temple.
“My shoulder.”
Paramedics moved in.
Only then did she let herself shake.
I crouched nearby.
“I’m sorry.”
She closed her eyes.
“Not now.”
“I know.”
“No, you don’t.”
Her voice broke.
“This is not the moment for you to make me take care of your guilt.”
The words landed exactly where they needed to.
I nodded.
“You’re right.”
Paramedics lifted her onto a stretcher.
Leonard was alive.
Shot through the upper arm.
Police cuffed him while medics treated the wound.
As they carried him past, he turned toward me.
“Your mother started it before your dad found out.”
I stared.
“What?”
“The accounts.”
He grimaced.
“She was already using your name.”
“I know.”
He shook his head.
“No. You don’t.”
An officer tried to move him.
Leonard forced out one more sentence.
“Ask whose name she used first.”
Then he was gone.
At the hospital, Olivia refused to let me into the examination room.
I respected it.
For once.
Rebecca stayed with her.
I sat alone beneath fluorescent lights.
My father dead.
My wife injured.
My mother linked to both.
And Leonard’s final words circling my mind.
Whose name she used first.
Two hours later, Rebecca stepped into the waiting room.
“Olivia has a concussion and a separated shoulder. She’ll recover.”
Relief nearly folded me in half.
“Can I see her?”
“Not yet.”
I nodded.
Rebecca sat across from me.
“There’s something else.”
Of course there was.
“Leonard started talking to police.”
I looked up.
“He wants a deal.”
“For what?”
“For telling them everything.”
My stomach tightened.
“About my father?”
“That too.”
“What else?”
Rebecca hesitated.
“Derek, Marjorie did not begin with your identity.”
“Then whose?”
Rebecca looked at me.
“Olivia’s.”
I frowned.
“That makes no sense. Olivia didn’t know her until we got together.”
“I know.”
“Then how?”
Rebecca slid a photocopy across the table.
It was an application dated six months before Olivia and I met.
Applicant: Olivia Bennett.
My wife’s maiden name.
Marjorie had been using Olivia’s identity before Olivia ever entered my life.
Click here to continue reading: PART 8: A Fraud Application From Before Our Marriage Forced Olivia and Me to Confront the Possibility That Our Meeting Was Never Accidental
My Mother’s Furious Phone Call Forced Me to Notice the Question I Had Spent Three Years Refusing to Ask
Part 7 of 47
