I put my hands to my face. This was worse than I had imagined.
“That boy, Paul… do you think—?”
“I don’t know what happened to him, Commander,” Linda said. “But the pattern is clear. Chelsea looks for older men, widowers with children. She marries them, and one way or another, those children end up out of the picture—dead, disappeared, or intimidated. Then she keeps the money. And now she’s with your son. Rob fits the profile perfectly. Young widower with a teenage son, and with a mother who has a property in her name. She can’t touch you directly while you’re alive, but she can make your son inherit and then manipulate him into selling.”
“That’s why she wants to push Ethan away,” I said, understanding everything. “Because Ethan is an obstacle. He’s the legitimate heir if something happened to Rob. And he’s smart enough to see her for what she really is.”
“Exactly. And that’s why she’s making him look like a delinquent. If she manages to get him admitted to a correctional facility or legally banished by his father, the path is clear.”
Linda pulled out another document.
“There’s more. Chelsea has an accomplice. His name is Gerald Hayes, a lawyer. He appeared in the three previous marriages. He takes care of the legal part—wills, powers of attorney, property sales. He splits the profits with Chelsea, fifty-fifty.”
“Do you have proof of that?”
“Suspicious bank transfers, always after each inheritance. Large amounts divided into accounts in the Cayman Islands. It’s not definitive proof for a judge, but it’s enough to start a formal investigation.”
I heard the bathroom door open. Ethan came out with wet hair and the clean clothes I had loaned him. When he saw Linda, he stopped.
“Good morning.”
“Good morning, Ethan. I’m Linda, your grandmother’s friend.”
He nodded and approached shyly. He saw the documents on the table.
“Is that about Chelsea?”
I looked at Linda. She nodded slightly. I decided Ethan deserved to know the truth.
“Sit down, son.”
I told him everything. Every marriage, every suspicious death, every disappearance. I watched his face turn pale with every word. When I finished, his hands were trembling.
“So she killed those people,” he whispered.
“We don’t know for sure,” Linda said. “But the pattern is too consistent to be a coincidence.”
