Chapter 1 - The Impossible Truth
The phone slipped from my trembling hand and crashed onto the linoleum floor.
I stared blankly at the wall, the sound of my daughter's voice echoing in my mind.
Grandpa is here.
My father had been buried twelve years ago in a closed-casket ceremony after a tragic boating accident.
I remembered crying at his grave, holding my mother’s hand while she wept into a black veil.
Detective Ramirez picked up my shattered phone from the floor, his expression hardening into a mask of pure focus.
He immediately radioed the station, demanding an emergency trace on my mother's cell phone number.
Dana stepped closer to me, her eyes darting nervously toward the clinic's automatic glass doors.
"We can't stay here," Dana whispered, grabbing her purse.
"If they know you are asking questions, this rehabilitation center is the first place they will come."
I looked at my left leg, wrapped in a brace, and wondered how far I could possibly run.
Ramirez turned to us and shook his head grimly.
"The phone is already disconnected, and the signal dropped somewhere near the state border."
He looked at the photograph of the crash site again, tracing the outline of my father's old truck.
"Your mother didn't sell that truck, Jessica."
"She hid it."
"And if your father is alive, we are dealing with a criminal conspiracy that spans over a decade."
I felt a cold sweat break out across my forehead as the pieces began to click into place.
The $180,000 fundraiser was just the beginning of their plan.
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My life insurance policy was worth over two million dollars.
They had faked my father's death for a payout, and now, they were doing the exact same thing to me.
