Chapter 8 - VANESSA CAME BACK WITHOUT A DIAMONDVanessa returned to Maine under federal subpoena.
Emma met her at the station.
For a long moment, neither woman moved.
Vanessa looked different.
No designer coat.
No diamond earrings.
No carefully styled hair.
She carried one suitcase.
"You look tired," Emma said.
"I am."
Vanessa gave a faint smile.
"I deserve worse."
Emma did not argue.
They drove in silence until Vanessa finally said, "Is Daniel coming?"
"No."
Vanessa looked relieved and disappointed at once.
"He shouldn't."
At Martin's office, investigators played the cassette recovered from the bank box.
Richard's voice came first.
Then Thomas Vale's.
The recording was sixteen years old.
They were discussing Hawthorne.
Not Claire.
Eleanor.
Richard had apparently discovered shortly after marrying Margaret that Eleanor Hawthorne's daughter was alive and legally entitled to a major interest in the company.
Vale asked what they should do.
Richard answered simply.
"Make her impossible to find."
Vale laughed.
"And Margaret?"
"She never needs to know."
Then Judge Keene's voice entered the conversation.
A third voice.
Calm.
Professional.
Terrifyingly casual.
"What you're asking requires documents."
Richard replied, "Then create documents."
The tape ended.
Nobody moved.
Daniel stood at the far side of the room.
He had changed his mind and come after all.
Vanessa saw him.
Her face collapsed for half a second.
"Daniel."
He nodded once.
"Vanessa."
Nothing more.
She turned back to investigators.
"I know where another copy came from."
Richard had once bragged after drinking that he never trusted anyone with the only version of important evidence.
Vanessa believed he maintained leverage files on Vale, Keene, doctors, bankers and board members.
"Where?" Martin asked.
Vanessa swallowed.
"Halewood Manor."
Emma stared at her.
"The wedding venue?"
Vanessa nodded.
"Richard didn't choose it because it was beautiful."
The room became silent.
"He owned part of it through another company."
Daniel understood first.
"The office."
Vanessa nodded again.
The small room where Emma had seen Richard kiss her.
"There was a safe behind the writing desk."
Emma remembered Vanessa pressed against it.
Richard standing too close.
The door partially open.
The first secret had been right in front of another.
Investigators secured a warrant.
By midnight, they entered Halewood Manor.
The safe was still there.
But it was empty.
Someone had reached it first.
On the inside of the steel door, however, investigators found something.
A recent fingerprint.
Thomas Vale's.
And beneath the safe, caught behind the baseboard, Emma noticed a tiny piece of torn paper.
Three handwritten words remained visible.
Mercer.
October.
Daniel.
Margaret stared at her son's name.
The date beside it was only four weeks away.
Whatever Richard had planned before his arrest had not ended with the wedding.
May you like
Something was supposed to happen in October.
And Daniel was at the center of it.
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