Chapter 13 - The Payment Before They Met)
Rebecca agreed to meet Daniel the next morning.
They chose Jonathan’s office.
No restaurants.
No home.
No places carrying memories.
Rebecca looked different when she arrived.
Her hair was loose.
No diamond earrings.
No designer dress.
She looked tired and younger than thirty-four.
Daniel placed the payment record on the table.
“Explain it.”
Rebecca read the transaction.
Her brow furrowed.
“I’ve never seen this.”
“It went to a company registered in your name.”
“What company?”
“Hayes Event Consulting.”
Rebecca stared.
“I had an event company for six months.”
“When?”
“Three years ago.”
“Andrew sent fifty thousand dollars to it.”
She shook her head.
“No.”
Jonathan opened another document.
“The account received the money and transferred it twenty-four hours later.”
“To where?”
Jonathan looked at her.
“Your mother.”
Rebecca closed her eyes.
Daniel understood.
“You didn’t know.”
“No.”
Margaret was called.
She arrived an hour later.
When she saw the document, she did not deny it.
Rebecca stood.
“What did you do?”
Margaret sat down slowly.
“Andrew contacted me before you met Daniel.”
Rebecca stared.
“How long before?”
“Three months.”
Daniel felt the room turn cold.
Margaret continued.
“He knew I hated Laura.”
“What did he want?”
“He wanted access to Daniel.”
Rebecca’s voice shook.
“And you gave him me.”
Margaret cried.
“I thought we wanted the same thing.”
Daniel asked, “What did he pay for?”
“Information.”
“What information?”
“Social events Daniel attended. People he knew. Places he went.”
Daniel remembered meeting Rebecca at a museum fundraiser.
She had appeared beside him during an auction.
Their conversation had felt accidental.
It was not.
Margaret continued.
“Andrew told me Daniel was lonely. He said if Rebecca became close to him, we could find out where Laura put the Bellweather assets.”
Rebecca stared at her mother.
“You arranged it.”
“Yes.”
Rebecca looked sick.
“All those times you told me it was fate.”
Margaret lowered her head.
“I’m sorry.”
Rebecca laughed once.
“You really like that sentence now.”
Margaret flinched.
Rebecca turned toward Daniel.
“I swear I did not know Andrew paid her.”
Daniel believed her.
Strangely, that almost made the situation sadder.
Rebecca had entered his life because Margaret and Andrew manipulated the meeting.
Then she had stayed because she developed her own motives.
Hatred.
Love.
Greed.
Guilt.
The relationship had become real inside a lie.
Daniel asked Margaret, “Did Andrew tell you to send Emily away?”
“No.”
“Did he suggest getting control of the trust?”
“Yes.”
Rebecca turned sharply.
“You said that was your idea.”
Margaret whispered, “I lied.”
Rebecca walked toward the window.
Daniel saw her shoulders shaking.
Jonathan asked, “Why did Andrew need Rebecca married to Daniel?”
Margaret answered.
“Access.”
“To the company?”
“To everything.”
Daniel finally saw Andrew’s long plan.
Andrew knew direct theft would eventually be traced.
But Rebecca, as Daniel’s wife, could obtain financial information naturally.
She could influence Daniel.
She could push him toward documents Andrew prepared.
The forged voting proxy had not been Rebecca’s original idea.
Andrew had designed the structure.
Rebecca and Margaret were tools.
Willing tools, eventually.
But tools nonetheless.
Daniel looked at Rebecca.
“Why did Andrew turn against you today?”
“Because I refused to give him permanent proxy authority.”
Daniel frowned.
“You knew about that?”
“Only the night before the wedding.”
“You still planned to marry me.”
Rebecca looked ashamed.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
She took a breath.
“Because by then I had convinced myself I could sign his documents temporarily, recover what I thought belonged to my family and then undo everything.”
Daniel stared.
“That makes no sense.”
“I know.”
“It would have destroyed the company.”
“I know that now.”
“No.”
Daniel leaned forward.
“You knew enough then.”
Rebecca looked down.
“You just thought you could control the damage.”
“Yes.”
Daniel sat back.
It was the same mistake everyone had made at Bellweather.
Take one wrong step.
Promise to fix it later.
Then another.
Then another.
Until the truth became too expensive to face.
Jonathan closed the file.
“We have enough.”
Daniel looked at him.
“For what?”
“To demonstrate Andrew’s long-term conspiracy.”
Daniel felt no joy.
He had imagined revenge might feel satisfying.
Instead, it felt like reaching the end of a dark hallway and discovering nothing there except wasted years.
Rebecca rose.
“Is there anything else?”
Daniel thought.
“One thing.”
She stopped.
“Emily kept your letter.”
Rebecca’s eyes widened.
“She did?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because you called her brave.”
Rebecca covered her mouth.
Tears filled her eyes.
Daniel continued.
“That does not mean she forgives you.”
“I know.”
“It does not mean I do.”
“I know.”
“But she kept it.”
Rebecca nodded.
“Thank you for telling me.”
She turned to leave.
At the door, Daniel said, “Rebecca.”
She looked back.
“You asked me at the lake house to tell Emily you were sorry.”
Rebecca waited.
“I didn’t.”
Her expression fell slightly.
“I made you tell her yourself.”
Rebecca nodded.
Daniel continued.
“That matters.”
A tiny, broken smile appeared.
Then she left.
Margaret remained.
Daniel looked at her.
“You started this.”
Margaret nodded.
“I know.”
“You pushed your daughter toward me because you wanted revenge.”
“Yes.”
“You helped Andrew enter my family.”
“Yes.”
Daniel looked at the woman who had nearly become his mother-in-law.
“What are you going to do now?”
Margaret answered without hesitation.
“Tell the truth until there is nothing left to tell.”
Daniel nodded.
For once, it was the right answer.
That evening he returned home.
Emily was sitting on the floor sorting photographs of Laura.
She held one up.
It showed Laura wearing a ridiculous oversized sunhat.
“Dad, look.”
Daniel sat beside her.
“I remember that.”
“She looks funny.”
“She was furious about that picture.”
Emily giggled.
Then she became serious.
“Are you sad the wedding didn’t happen?”
Daniel considered the question.
“Yes.”
Emily looked surprised.
“You wanted to marry Rebecca?”
“At one point, very much.”
“But she was bad.”
Daniel shook his head gently.
“She did bad things.”
“Same thing.”
“Not always.”
Emily frowned.
Daniel continued.
“Sometimes people become worse because they keep choosing the wrong thing. That doesn’t mean we have to trust them again.”
Emily looked at Rebecca’s letter on the shelf.
“Can people become good again?”
“I think they can become better.”
“Will Rebecca?”
“I don’t know.”
Emily nodded thoughtfully.
Then she handed Daniel another photograph.
Laura stood in front of the lake house.
Behind her, partly hidden near a tree, was a younger Andrew Miles.
Daniel stared.
The date printed on the photograph was nine years earlier.
Two years before Andrew claimed he first met Laura.
Daniel turned the photo over.
Laura had written:
Andrew came again today.
He knows about the second account.
May you like
Daniel’s heart began pounding.
There had been one more lie.
