My Father-In-Law Gave Me A 40-Page File And 3 Days To Resign — Then I Checked The Letterhead…
Chapter 13
Six months later, Daniel received a package.
No return address.
Inside was another file.
Only five pages this time.
He took it to Claire.
“Should we open it?”
She stared.
“I hate files.”
He laughed.
They opened it together.
The pages contained information about one final dormant company.
Northstar Holdings Europe.
Most assets had been frozen.
But one account remained.
The beneficiary was unknown.
Daniel looked at Claire.
“Is it over?”
“Apparently not.”
They showed the file to federal investigators.
The account led to a private trust in Switzerland.
The beneficiary name was Thomas Brooks.
Daniel froze.
“My father.”
But Thomas had been dead.
The investigator checked the account history.
It had been accessed two weeks earlier.
Someone using Thomas’s original authorization.
Daniel’s hands shook.
“He was supposed to be dead.”
Claire squeezed his hand.
“Maybe someone is using his identity.”
Then another document appeared.
A scanned passport.
Thomas Brooks.
Recent photograph.
Daniel stared.
It was unmistakably his father.
Older.
But alive.
The same cabin photograph.
The same face.
Same eyes.
Daniel couldn’t speak.
Claire looked at him.
“What if he survived?”
“We buried him.”
“You buried an empty coffin?”
Daniel stared.
They searched the official records.
The death certificate contained one flaw.
The signature belonged to a doctor who had died three months before Thomas supposedly did.
Daniel remembered the forty-page file.
The dead names.
The false signatures.
The fake letterhead.
Someone had been doing this for years.
His father could have survived.
Then why not return?
The answer came from the account transfer.
A payment had been made to a remote clinic.
The same clinic where Claire’s mother had been hiding.
Daniel looked at her.
“They knew each other.”
“Yes.”
“Maybe they’re still protecting each other.”
They flew there.
But the clinic was empty.
Susan was gone.
No note.
No warning.
Only one message on Daniel’s phone.
You were never supposed to find him.
Then another.
But now you have.
Coordinates followed.
A remote coastal village.
Daniel stared.
Claire took his hand.
“We’re going.”
