Chapter 8 - REBECCA’S BABY
Charles recognized the name immediately.
Rebecca Lawson.
The woman in the courthouse photograph.
The woman who disappeared after having Daniel’s child.
Nora turned toward him.
“What does Lucy have to do with Rebecca’s baby?”
“I don’t know.”
“You investigated Daniel for years.”
“I never found the child.”
“Was it a boy or a girl?”
“A girl.”
The answer came too quickly.
Nora looked at him.
“How old would she be?”
Charles calculated silently.
“Fourteen.”
“Where was Rebecca last seen?”
“Connecticut.”
Grant Vale’s family owned property in Connecticut.
Ortiz ordered searches of tax records and abandoned buildings connected to him.
Rachel examined Daniel’s financial history.
A recurring payment appeared every month for fourteen years.
It went to an account labeled Lawson Education Trust.
The beneficiary’s identity was sealed.
The account had received its final payment three weeks earlier.
That was the same week Grace disappeared.
“Daniel supported the child,” Nora said.
“Or paid someone to remain silent,” Rachel replied.
At dawn, an Arden Foundation van was found outside a closed boarding school in Connecticut.
Blood marked the passenger seat.
The blood type matched Grant.
There was no sign of Lucy.
Inside the vehicle, police discovered one of Lucy’s blue hair ribbons.
Nora held it in an evidence bag.
She had tied that ribbon around Lucy’s curls the morning of the gala.
A note had been tucked beneath the seat.
It contained an address.
Ortiz believed it might be a trap.
Nora did not care.
The address led to a farmhouse near the Massachusetts border.
Police surrounded it shortly after eight.
The front door stood open.
Grant lay unconscious in the kitchen.
He had been struck from behind.
Lucy was not there.
Neither was Daniel.
Upstairs, officers discovered a bedroom prepared for a teenage girl.
Books lined the shelves.
School uniforms hung in the wardrobe.
Photographs covered the walls.
Every photograph showed the same dark-haired child at different ages.
The most recent showed her standing beside Grace Holloway.
Nora stared at it.
“Grace knew Rebecca’s daughter.”
A name was written beneath the photograph.
Emily Lawson.
Ortiz located the school shown on the uniform.
Emily had attended under a scholarship funded by the Arden Foundation.
She had withdrawn three days earlier.
The person who signed her out identified herself as Grace Holloway.
“Grace took her,” Charles said.
“Or tried to protect her,” Nora replied.
Grant regained consciousness in the ambulance.
He requested immunity before speaking.
Ortiz refused.
Grant finally admitted Daniel paid him to copy Charles’s security credentials.
He disabled the ballroom cameras.
He allowed the fake nurse into Whitmore House.
He stole the codicil.
He locked Nora and Charles inside the vault.
He also admitted abducting Lucy.
“Where did you take her?” Nora demanded from outside the ambulance.
Ortiz tried to hold her back.
Grant looked at Nora through the open doors.
“To the farmhouse.”
“Then who took her?”
“Celeste.”
Nora froze.
Grant winced as the paramedic wrapped his head.
“She arrived twenty minutes after me.”
“Why?”
“Daniel sent her.”
“Where did she take Lucy?”
“I don’t know.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“She hit me.”
“Why would Celeste turn against Daniel?”
Grant laughed weakly.
“She found the photographs.”
“What photographs?”
“Emily.”
Nora looked toward the upstairs window.
Grant’s face became pale.
“Celeste knows who the girl is.”
“Who is she?”
Grant hesitated.
“Daniel’s daughter.”
“We know that.”
“No.”
Grant looked toward Charles.
“Daniel is not her father.”
Charles became still.
Grant continued.
“Celeste’s father was.”
Nora tried to understand.
Rebecca’s baby was connected to the Arden family.
Celeste’s father, Victor Arden, had died in prison ten years earlier after being convicted of embezzling from Whitmore Global.
Celeste had always blamed Charles.
“What does Daniel have to do with her?” Nora asked.
“Daniel used Rebecca to hide Victor Arden’s child.”
“Why?”
“To control Celeste.”
Grant coughed.
“He told her the girl died.”
Nora looked at the photographs.
Daniel had secretly financed Emily’s life while convincing Celeste her half sister was dead.
He had used the child as leverage.
For what?
Rachel found part of the answer in the trust accounts.
Victor Arden had placed stolen Whitmore shares into Rebecca Lawson’s name shortly before his arrest.
Those shares would legally transfer to Emily when she turned fifteen.
Combined with Lucy’s shares, they could shift control of Whitmore Global.
Daniel needed both girls.
One as guardian.
The other through blackmail.
Nora’s phone rang.
Celeste’s name appeared.
Nora answered immediately.
“Where is Lucy?”
“She is with me.”
“Let me speak to her.”
“Not yet.”
Nora heard a child crying in the background.
Then another voice.
Older.
Emily.
“You have both girls.”
“I am trying to keep them alive.”
“From Daniel?”
“From your father.”
Nora looked at Charles.
Celeste’s breathing sounded unsteady.
“Charles destroyed my father,” she said.
“Your father stole from his company.”
“That is what Charles wanted everyone to believe.”
“What does this have to do with Lucy?”
“Everything.”
“Tell me where you are.”
“I need proof that Charles cannot reach us.”
“Charles is standing beside me.”
“Then walk away.”
Nora moved toward the edge of the property.
Ortiz followed at a distance.
“What do you want?” Nora asked.
“I want the original Arden ledger.”
“I don’t know what that is.”
“Charles does.”
Nora looked back at her father.
“Ask him what happened the night your mother died.”
Nora stopped.
“My mother died in a car accident.”
Celeste gave a bitter laugh.
“Your mother died because she found the ledger.”
Charles’s face changed.
Even from twenty feet away, Nora saw it.
“What ledger?” Nora asked.
“The one proving Victor Arden was not stealing alone.”
“Who was helping him?”
Celeste whispered the name.
“Charles Whitmore.”
The call ended.
Nora turned toward her father.
Charles looked at the ground.
“You knew she would say that,” Nora said.
He did not answer.
“Did my mother die because of you?”
“Nora.”
“Did she?”
Charles looked at the farmhouse.
“There was a ledger.”
Her breath caught.
“Where is it?”
“I burned it.”
Nora stared at him.
“Why?”
“Because it contained your mother’s signature.”
The world seemed to shift beneath her.
“My mother helped steal from Whitmore Global?”
“No.”
“Then why was her name in it?”
“She was investigating Victor.”
“Why burn the proof?”
Charles’s eyes filled with something Nora had rarely seen in him.
Shame.
“Because the ledger also proved I knew Victor was moving money months before Eleanor died.”
“You let him continue?”
“I needed to know who else was involved.”
“And Mom found out.”
“Yes.”
“What happened the night she died?”
Charles’s voice dropped.
“She took the original ledger and drove to meet a federal investigator.”
“Did Victor follow her?”
“I did.”
Nora’s chest tightened.
“There were three cars on the road.”
“Who was in the third?”
Charles looked toward the ambulance carrying Grant away.
“Daniel.”
Nora stared at him.
She had met Daniel seven years after her mother’s death.
At least, that was what he had always told her.
Charles reached inside his coat.
He removed a faded photograph.
It showed nineteen-year-old Nora standing beside Eleanor at a charity luncheon.
In the background, partly hidden behind a server, stood a young man.
Daniel.
Watching Nora.
“He knew you before you knew him,” Charles said.
Nora looked at the face in the photograph.
Daniel had been present at her mother’s final public event.
“What happened on the road?” she whispered.
May you like
Charles answered with a sentence that turned every year of Nora’s marriage into something darker.
“Daniel forced your mother’s car over the cliff.”
