Chapter 6 - Vanessa Bell Was Not Her Name)
Vanessa returned two days later.
She walked through the front door of Hawthorne House at ten in the morning wearing cream trousers, dark sunglasses, and the expression of a woman arriving late to a meeting.
Daniel was waiting.
So was Margaret.
Clara was safely at Margaret’s home with Sofia.
Noah was with Vanessa’s sister.
Reeves stood near the staircase.
Vanessa removed her sunglasses.
This is dramatic.
Daniel held up the old photograph.
Who are you?
Vanessa looked at it.
For the first time since Margaret had met her, she appeared genuinely surprised.
Where did you get that?
Answer me.
Vanessa placed her handbag on the console.
My name is Vanessa.
Bell?
She exhaled.
No.
Daniel stared.
What is your name?
Vanessa Pierce.
Margaret remembered the name.
Thomas Hawthorne’s first wife had been Helen Pierce.
No.
Margaret whispered it.
Vanessa looked at her.
You know.
Daniel looked between them.
Know what?
Margaret spoke carefully.
Your grandfather had a daughter before your father was born.
Daniel frowned.
That is not possible.
She died as a child.
That is what your family said.
Vanessa smiled without humor.
Families say many things.
Daniel looked at her.
Who was she?
My mother.
The room went silent.
Vanessa continued.
Helen Pierce was seventeen when Thomas’s father got her pregnant.
The Hawthorne family paid Helen’s parents to disappear.
The baby was registered under another name.
That baby became Thomas’s half sister.
And her daughter was Vanessa.
Daniel stared.
You are related to me?
Distantly.
Why hide it?
Because your father did.
Thomas found Vanessa when she was twenty-three.
He hired her.
He told her the Hawthorne family had robbed her branch of the family.
Vanessa believed him.
At first, she said, Thomas had promised to correct everything.
Shares.
Property.
Money that had been hidden for decades.
Then she discovered that Thomas was using her.
He placed assets in her name.
He opened holding companies through her accounts.
He made her responsible for transactions she did not fully understand.
Emily discovered those transactions.
Margaret asked the obvious question.
Did Emily know who you were?
Yes.
Did she know Thomas was alive?
Vanessa’s face changed.
Daniel stepped forward.
My father is alive?
Vanessa said nothing.
Daniel shouted.
Is he alive?
I do not know.
Margaret laughed once.
You expect us to believe that?
Vanessa looked at her.
I expect nothing from you.
Where have you been for two days?
Trying to find him.
Daniel’s face tightened.
So you think he is alive.
I think someone wants us to think he is.
Who?
I do not know.
Reeves spoke.
The access codes at the mansion.
Emily’s code.
Vanessa looked at him.
I did not use it.
But you knew someone had.
Yes.
Why did you not tell Daniel?
Because the first time it happened, I found something in his office.
What?
Vanessa opened her handbag.
She removed a small brass key.
Margaret recognized it.
It matched the key to Emily’s deposit box.
Daniel stared.
Where did that come from?
Your desk.
I have never seen it.
I know.
Vanessa placed it down.
Someone wanted me to find it.
Then why take it?
Because I knew what it opened.
Margaret stepped toward her.
You entered Emily’s deposit box?
No.
I tried.
The bank required identification matching the registered owner.
Vanessa looked at Margaret.
You got there first.
You knew about the box.
Emily told me.
When?
Three days before she died.
Margaret felt anger rising.
Why would my daughter tell you anything?
Because she wanted me to help expose Thomas.
Daniel shook his head.
Emily hated you.
Yes.
Because I was sleeping with her husband.
The bluntness stunned him.
Vanessa looked at Daniel.
Do not make that face. You were there.
Then she turned back to Margaret.
Emily despised me personally. But she believed I could help her professionally.
Did you?
At first.
Then what?
I got scared.
Of Thomas?
Yes.
Is that why she died?
Vanessa’s composure cracked.
I do not know.
Margaret moved closer.
Were you with Emily the day she died?
No.
Did you talk to her?
Yes.
What did she say?
Vanessa’s eyes lowered.
She said she had enough evidence.
Evidence of what?
That Thomas had staged his death.
Daniel stepped back as if struck.
Vanessa continued.
Emily found travel records under another name.
She found private medical payments after his supposed death.
She found a photograph taken in Prague six months after the funeral.
Why did she not go to police?
She was going to.
When?
The night she died.
Margaret could barely speak.
Where was the evidence?
Vanessa looked toward the conservatory.
In the house.
Where?
I never knew.
Margaret thought of the hidden recorder.
Daniel thought of something else.
The second trust.
Why did Emily create it?
Vanessa’s answer came slowly.
Because Hawthorne House was never really about the house.
What does that mean?
The property includes land rights to the northern ridge.
Daniel frowned.
There is nothing there.
Thomas thought otherwise.
Vanessa looked directly at him.
Your father spent twenty years trying to get control of that land.
Emily found out why.
What is there?
Vanessa shook her head.
I do not know.
Daniel did not believe her.
Margaret did not either.
Then Vanessa said something that made all of them forget the land for a moment.
There is one more thing you should know.
She looked at Margaret.
The day Emily died, she was not driving to the police station.
Where was she going?
To meet me.
Margaret’s hands trembled.
Where?
At the lake house.
Reeves went still.
Vanessa continued.
Emily never arrived.
Margaret stared at her.
Then how did you know she crashed?
May you like
Vanessa’s answer was barely a whisper.
Because Thomas called me before the police called Daniel.
