Chapter 4 - THE WOMAN WHO WASN'T FROM CPS
I broke every speed limit between the gas station and the motel.
Rebecca arrived before I did.
By the time I pulled in, two patrol cars sat outside room 214.
Gaby was holding Leo.
She was shaking.
The woman was gone.
And she had never worked for Child Protective Services.
The motel camera captured her face.
Nobody recognized her.
But Rebecca noticed something more important.
“She wanted Gaby to open the door.”
“Why?”
“Maybe intimidation.”
“Maybe?”
Rebecca looked at me.
“Maybe she wanted a confrontation.”
A frightened Gaby screaming in a hallway.
Police arriving.
A baby crying.
One more piece of manufactured evidence.
Rebecca moved Gaby immediately.
Then we opened Tyler's flash drive.
There were hundreds of files.
Property documents.
Company registrations.
Copies of IDs.
Photographs.
Audio recordings.
Then we found a folder labeled simply:
GH.
Inside were photographs of Gaby taken over eight months.
Pregnant.
At the grocery store.
At medical appointments.
Driving to my house.
Then we found a psychological evaluation.
It claimed Gaby suffered from paranoia, emotional instability, and possible delusions.
She had never met the psychiatrist who supposedly wrote it.
Rebecca checked the date.
Then she looked at me.
“Where was Gaby on March twenty-third last year?”
“My house.”
“You're certain?”
“It was my birthday.”
I had photographs.
Receipts.
Guests.
She had been with me the entire day.
The report was fake.
Which meant someone hadn't simply threatened to call Gaby unstable.
They had already created the evidence.
Then Rebecca opened another document.
She went silent.
“What?”
I asked.
She turned the laptop toward me.
It was a custody strategy memo.
Prepared months before Leo's birth.
At the bottom were four words:
PHASE THREE — ROBERT HAYES.
I read them twice.
“This isn't only about Gaby.”
Rebecca shook her head.
“No.”
May you like
And suddenly Tyler's final question made sense.
Why did Brenda know how much I had sold my company for?
