Chapter 6 - The Investigation
I knew I could not wait for the court system to figure out the truth about Sarah.
The image of that scarred driver and the bruise on her wrist haunted me all morning.
I packed up the children, loaded them into the minivan, and drove to a local pawn shop.
I took off my late father’s vintage gold watch, the only item of real value I possessed in this world.
The pawnbroker handed me a stack of cash, and I immediately used it to hire a private investigator I found online.
His name was Vance, a retired cop who worked out of a dingy office above a bowling alley.
I sat across from him, explaining the situation while the kids played quietly in the corner.
"She claims to be their aunt, but she only wants the youngest three," I told Vance.
"And she looked terrified of the man driving her car."
Vance took the folder of documents Sarah had left at my house and began running the names through his database.
I spent the rest of the day looking at cheap rental apartments, trying to secure a home before the Friday deadline.
Every landlord rejected my application the moment they saw my bank statement.
By Thursday evening, we were sitting in a cheap motel room, eating instant noodles.
Time was running out, and I felt like I was failing them.
My phone suddenly buzzed on the nightstand.
It was Vance.
"Carter, you need to listen to me very carefully," his gravelly voice came through the speaker.
"I ran the DNA certificates and the birth records through the state database."
My heart pounded as I looked over at Leo, who was reading a story to his little sister.
"Are they fake?" I asked quietly, not wanting to scare the kids.
"They are perfectly forged, but they belong to a dead woman," Vance replied.
"Sarah isn't their aunt, and she isn't even related to them."
A cold sweat broke out on the back of my neck.
"Then who is she?" I asked.
"Her real name is Evelyn Vance, a known associate of a local crime syndicate," he said grimly.
"Carter, she is not trying to adopt those kids."
Vance paused, taking a deep breath.
May you like
"She is trying to kidnap them to unlock a three-million-dollar trust fund their parents left behind."
Before I could respond, a deafening crash echoed through the motel room as the front door was kicked completely off its hinges.
