Chapter 10 - richard's last winter)
Eleanor had spent years remembering Richard's death as sudden.
Now she remembered the weeks before it.
He had been distracted.
He changed passwords.
He moved files home from the office.
Twice she woke at night and found him standing beside the library window.
When asked what was wrong, he said business.
Richard always said business when he did not want to explain.
One week before he died, he insisted Sophie, then not yet born, would need protection.
Eleanor laughed at him.
Daniel and Claire had only just announced the pregnancy.
Protection from what.
Richard kissed her forehead.
From whatever we leave behind.
At the time she assumed he meant wealth.
Now she was not sure.
She contacted Richard's former physician.
Nothing unusual appeared in his medical file.
Heart disease.
High blood pressure.
Age sixty eight.
Natural death.
Then Eleanor requested his old toxicology report.
There was none.
No autopsy had been performed.
She had refused one.
She remembered the hospital asking.
She remembered saying Richard would have hated it.
The choice haunted her now.
Detective Reed warned her not to connect unrelated deaths without evidence.
Eleanor agreed.
Then looked for evidence.
Richard's old laptop had been stored in an archive closet.
A technician recovered deleted emails.
Most were routine.
One was not.
Sent to Peter Sloan six days before Richard died.
I know what you have been moving through Meridian. Stop now or I release everything.
Sloan replied.
You are misunderstanding ordinary financing.
Richard wrote.
Do not insult me.
The final email arrived from Sloan.
You should consider what exposure would do to Daniel.
Eleanor read that sentence repeatedly.
What exposure.
Martin did not know.
Daniel did not know.
Then the technician found an encrypted folder.
Password hint.
Eleanor's first garden.
Daniel smiled sadly.
Rosehaven.
The password worked.
The folder contained financial ledgers.
Payments from Meridian subsidiaries to shell companies.
One shell company was Northgate Holdings.
Not Northgate Advisory.
Created twenty seven years earlier.
The listed director was a woman named Margaret Cole.
Vanessa's mother.
Eleanor looked at Daniel.
Vanessa's family has been tied to Sloan since before you met Claire.
Daniel went pale.
They searched public records.
Margaret Cole had worked as an accountant for Sloan during the original Meridian dispute.
She disappeared from corporate records shortly after Richard bought Sloan out.
Vanessa had been a child then.
Whatever this was, it was generational.
That evening Natalie Cole arrived at Eleanor's gate.
She looked exhausted.
I need to talk.
Eleanor brought her inside.
Natalie refused tea.
Vanessa knows I spoke to police.
Is she threatening you.
Not exactly.
What exactly.
Natalie looked at Daniel.
Our mother died when we were teenagers.
Vanessa always blamed Richard Whitmore.
Eleanor stared.
Why.
Mom lost everything after Meridian collapsed.
She had been promised equity. Sloan said Richard stole it.
Did your mother believe that.
Yes.
And Vanessa.
More than anyone.
Natalie twisted her hands.
Peter helped us after Mom died. School. Rent. Everything.
So Sloan raised Vanessa.
In a way.
Eleanor understood.
Vanessa had not simply appeared as a consultant.
She had been sent.
Did Vanessa target Daniel intentionally.
Natalie nodded.
For years.
Daniel looked sick.
How many years.
She researched you before Claire ever met you.
Daniel stood.
That is impossible.
Natalie continued.
Vanessa told me Peter said the easiest way back into Meridian was through Richard's son.
Eleanor asked, then why wait.
Because Daniel married Claire.
They thought Claire would be easy to manipulate.
She was not.
Claire discovered them.
Natalie's eyes filled with tears.
I think that is why she died.
Daniel moved toward her.
What do you know.
Not enough.
Tell me anyway.
Natalie breathed shakily.
The night Claire died, Vanessa came home after two in the morning.
Her clothes were wet.
She told me she had been with Daniel.
But I knew she had not.
How.
Because she was driving a black SUV that did not belong to her.
Eleanor remembered the traffic camera.
Whose vehicle.
Natalie looked toward the window.
Peter Sloan's company had several fleet vehicles.
One disappeared from records the next month.
Reed needed more than memory.
Natalie had something else.
A photograph.
Taken accidentally when Vanessa came home.
Natalie had photographed her dog near the front window.
The SUV appeared in the background.
The timestamp was 2:17 a.m.
Detective Reed compared the vehicle's plate fragment with historical Meridian fleet records.
It matched.
Vanessa had lied about her location.
But there was a problem.
Claire's accident happened before midnight.
Vanessa arriving after two proved nothing by itself.
Then investigators enhanced the photograph.
There was something visible in the SUV's rear cargo area.
A blue object.
Claire's car had contained a blue overnight bag.
Police had never recovered it.
Daniel stared at the image.
What was in Claire's bag.
Eleanor knew.
Claire carried Sophie's medical records in it.
And according to her notebook, she had also placed copies of the Meridian evidence there.
Suddenly they had a possible reason Claire's crash scene had been searched.
Vanessa may not have caused the accident.
But she may have arrived afterward.
May you like
The question was who had been there first.
And the answer pointed back to Peter Sloan.
