My breath caught.
“You found Hannah?”
He didn’t answer.
His eyes stayed on Rick.
Then he quietly said, “Ma’am, it’s time you heard what your husband has really been hiding for the past ten years.”
Rick said nothing.
My legs weakened, so Detective Palmer guided me to the couch while Detective Gomez remained near the door.
Rick still hadn’t moved.
“Mrs. Rhodes,” Palmer said, “the woman at the flea market, Cheryl, called our tip line yesterday. She’d seen Hannah’s photo on one of those old cold-case segments, and something about the way you reacted to those earrings stuck with her. Her son told her where that estate box came from. It belonged to a woman named Judith, who passed away two months ago.”
The name barely registered.
I’d heard it maybe twice in twenty years.
“Judith,” I whispered. “Rick’s sister?”
Palmer nodded slowly.
“She was his older sister. They lost contact years before you two met. She lived in rural Ohio, pretty isolated, with no close neighbors or family. We’ve been working the tip quietly ever since Cheryl called, pulling Judith’s records, coordinating with Ohio authorities, and confirming that a young woman had been living with her.”
She paused.
“We only came to your door once we were sure. Judith had been raising the teenage girl for the last decade. Different name. The same age as Hannah. Same description.”
I turned toward Rick.
Tears were sliding silently down his face.
“Rick,” I said. “What did you do?”
He shook his head like a child caught lying.
“Marlene, please…”
“What did you do?!”
Rick slid down the wall until he was sitting on the floor.
Palmer waited.
Finally, he spoke.
“I was in debt,” Rick said. “Gambling. I owed people I couldn’t pay. And I’d already taken the money, Marlene. Your mother’s inheritance, the account she left for Hannah’s college, I drained it. All of it.”
I couldn’t breathe.
“Hannah heard me,” he said. “On the phone. She came through the back door from piano practice. She heard me telling the guy where the money came from. She heard the account, the amounts, and heard me say your name.”
“She was 11,” I said.
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