Chapter 8 - Vanessa’s First Assignment
Vanessa arrived at 7:28 a.m.
Her car entered the abandoned courtyard slowly, as though she expected someone to block the gate. She stepped out wearing a dark coat over the champagne dress from the penthouse.
Nathan watched from a second-floor office.
Elena had positioned cameras inside the former executive conference room. Margaret waited in another part of the building with the original documents and a direct connection to Daniel Hurst.
Nathan placed the wedding photograph in his pocket.
Vanessa entered the conference room alone.
“You look terrible,” she said.
“I lost my company yesterday.”
“You haven’t lost it yet.”
“You signed the document that will take it from me.”
She sat at the long table.
“I signed what Adrian told me was a temporary protection agreement.”
“You transferred my voting rights to Halcyon.”
“I didn’t understand the structure.”
“You worked in corporate communications for six years.”
“That doesn’t make me a lawyer.”
“No. It makes you someone who knew exactly what insolvency meant.”
Vanessa looked toward the dusty windows.
“Adrian said the company was already dying.”
“Because he was killing it.”
“I know that now.”
“How much did he promise you?”
Her eyes returned to him.
“Is that what you think this was about?”
“I don’t know what to think.”
“You stopped seeing me, Nathan. Every dinner became a board meeting. Every vacation became a conference call. When your father disappeared, you turned Blackridge into a memorial and expected me to live inside it.”
“You could have left.”
“I tried to reach you.”
“You reached Adrian.”
Vanessa flinched, but she did not deny it.
Nathan sat across from her.
“When did you first meet him?”
“At Blackridge.”
“When did you first meet me?”
“At the foundation gala.”
“That is the answer you’ve given for nine years.”
“It’s the truth.”
Nathan placed the wedding photograph on the table.
Vanessa looked down.
The red circle around her face drained the color from her expression.
“Where did you get this?”
“My father left it in a vault.”
She turned the photograph over and read the sentence.
Her fingers tightened.
“She did not meet you by accident.”
Nathan watched her carefully.
“Tell me what he meant.”
Vanessa stood.
“I should go.”
“If you leave, Adrian takes the company and gives you whatever portion he decides you deserve. Then Orion removes him.”
She stopped.
“Who told you about Orion?”
“So you know it exists.”
Vanessa closed her eyes.
For several seconds, she seemed to fight with herself.
Then she sat again.
“Before I met you, I worked for a reputation-management firm called Bellweather Communications.”
Nathan knew the company. Bellweather had handled crisis campaigns for banks, celebrities, and political organizations.
“They assigned me to research Blackridge’s leadership,” she continued. “I was supposed to learn which executives could be influenced.”
“Influenced how?”
“Money. Relationships. Fear. Ambition.”
“And I was your assignment.”
“You were considered the easiest path to Charles.”
Nathan felt anger building beneath his ribs.
“You built our marriage from a file.”
“No.”
“You approached me because someone paid you.”
“I approached you because Bellweather instructed me to attend the gala. Everything after that was real.”
“Was Adrian part of Bellweather?”
“I didn’t know him then.”
The lie arrived too smoothly.
Nathan remained silent.
Vanessa looked away first.
“He contacted me after our engagement.”
“What did he want?”
“Updates about Charles.”
“You reported on my father to Adrian before we were married.”
“At first, it was harmless. His schedule. His concerns about the board. Whether he planned to change the trust.”
“Then?”
“Then Charles discovered someone was monitoring him. Adrian told me I had to choose.”
“Between what?”
“Between leaving you and proving I could be trusted.”
Nathan thought of his father’s suspicion. Charles had believed someone close to Nathan was reporting his movements.
It had been Vanessa.
“How did you prove it?”
She stared at the table.
“I gave Adrian access to Charles’s private calendar.”
Nathan remembered the final week before the plane crash.
Charles had changed his travel plans twice.
Only a handful of people had known the final route.
Nathan’s voice became quiet.
“Did Adrian know about the flight?”
Vanessa’s eyes filled, but she held the tears back.
“Yes.”
“Did you?”
“Not until afterward.”
Nathan stood.
“You expect me to believe that?”
“I didn’t know the plane would disappear.”
“But you gave them the route.”
“I thought they were trying to stop a merger.”
“You never told me.”
“I was afraid.”
“For two years?”
“Adrian said if I spoke, he would make it look as if I arranged everything.”
Nathan pulled the recorder from his pocket and placed it on the table.
Vanessa stared at the red light.
“You recorded me.”
“Yes.”
Her face hardened.
“You used me.”
“You taught me how.”
She rose from the chair.
Nathan opened the blue folder and showed her the transfer agreement.
“Adrian needs your final board signature at nine.”
“I know.”
“Give it to him.”
Vanessa looked at him in disbelief.
“You want me to help him?”
“I want him to believe he has won.”
“And then?”
“You ask him one question during the meeting.”
“What question?”
Nathan slid the forty-two-million-dollar withdrawal order across the table.
“Ask him why Orison returned Blackridge’s stolen money to Crown Lake.”
Vanessa studied the page.
“He’ll know I spoke to you.”
“Yes.”
“He’ll destroy me.”
“He already planned to.”
Her phone rang.
Adrian.
Vanessa looked at the screen, then at Nathan.
“What happens if I refuse?”
“Then I submit your confession with the rest of the evidence.”
“And if I help you?”
“I tell the truth. All of it. Including the fact that you helped expose him.”
Vanessa answered the call.
Adrian’s voice came through clearly.
“Where are you?”
She looked directly at Nathan.
“I’m on my way to the board meeting.”
“Have you seen Nathan?”
Vanessa paused.
“No.”
Nathan knew instantly that Adrian would hear the lie.
So did Vanessa.
Adrian remained silent for three seconds.
May you like
Then he said, “Ask Nathan whether his father survived the crash.”
The call ended.
