CHAPTER 2 — THE LAST VISITOR
Preston stared at the photograph.
“That proves nothing.”
Emily held it beneath the ballroom lights.
The image was clear.
Preston stood near the private elevator outside Arthur Hale’s hospital suite. Lydia was beside him, wearing the same pearl necklace she had worn to the funeral the next morning.
Neither of them had ever admitted visiting the hospital.
“You told me you were meeting investors in Chicago,” Emily said.
“I was.”
“Then how were you photographed in Boston at eleven forty-seven that night?”
Preston looked at Nora.
“This could be altered.”
“It came directly from the hospital’s security archive,” Nora replied. “Arthur requested a copy two days before he died.”
“That makes no sense,” Lydia interrupted. “Arthur was unconscious.”
Daniel Mercer watched her carefully.
“Mrs. Vale, no one said when he requested it.”
Lydia realized her mistake.
Vanessa quietly moved toward the ballroom’s side exit.
A security officer blocked her again.
Emily opened the remaining documents.
There were medication records, financial transfers, and copies of messages between Preston and an unknown contact saved under the name Dr. Gray.
One message had been sent hours before Arthur’s death.
Increase it tonight. We can’t wait another week.
Emily’s fingers began to tremble.
“What did you increase?”
Preston shook his head.
“I’ve never seen that message.”
Daniel opened his case and placed a phone inside a clear evidence bag on the table.
“This device was recovered from a safe-deposit box belonging to Arthur Hale.”
Preston’s eyes fixed on it.
Daniel continued.
“Mr. Hale believed someone within his family was accessing his medical records and altering instructions given to his private nurse.”
Emily remembered her father’s final weeks.
He had grown weak quickly.
His speech had become slow.
Some days, he had seemed unable to recognize her.
Preston had convinced her the illness was progressing naturally.
He had also insisted on choosing the private nursing staff.
“Who is Dr. Gray?” Emily asked.
No one answered.
Nora removed another sheet.
“There was no physician named Gray employed by the hospital. However, there was a private nurse named Grace Miller.”
Emily looked up.
“Grace.”
“She disappeared two days after your father’s funeral,” Nora said.
Preston scoffed.
“People quit jobs.”
“She abandoned her apartment, her car, and three months of unpaid wages.”
A cold wave passed through Emily.
Vanessa suddenly spoke.
“I don’t know anything about a nurse.”
No one had asked her.
Daniel turned toward her.
“Why would you think we believed you did?”
Vanessa’s mouth opened, but no words came out.
Preston glared at her.
The look lasted less than a second, but Emily saw it.
It was not confusion.
It was a warning.
Emily studied Vanessa’s face.
The woman who had laughed while Emily knelt before her now looked close to panic.
Nora slid another document across the table.
It was a wire transfer.
Two hundred thousand dollars had been sent from a Vale Industries account to a company called Graystone Medical Consulting.
The transfer had been authorized by Vanessa Cole.
Emily looked at her.
“You paid her?”
Vanessa backed away.
“Preston told me it was a consulting fee.”
Preston stepped toward her.
“Be quiet.”
Daniel immediately moved between them.
Vanessa stared at Preston.
Something changed in her expression.
Fear hardened into anger.
“You said no one would ever connect that company to me.”
The ballroom became completely still.
Preston whispered her name.
But Vanessa was no longer looking at him.
She was looking at Emily.
“There’s something you need to know about the night your father died.”
Before she could continue, every light in the mansion went out.
In the darkness, someone screamed.
Then came the unmistakable sound of a door slamming shut.
May you like
When the emergency lights flickered on, Vanessa was gone.
And the evidence phone had disappeared with her.
