Chapter 8 - The File Rebecca Left Behind
The engagement announcement lasted forty-two minutes.
For forty-two minutes, Claire held Nicholas's hand beneath the cameras and answered questions about flowers, guest lists, and second chances.
For forty-two minutes, Nicholas played the grateful survivor.
And for forty-two minutes, Hannah stood near the terrace doors pretending she had not seen the signal.
When the final camera crew left, Claire bent and kissed Nicholas's cheek.
"That was perfect."
Nicholas smiled at her.
"You always know how to give the press what they want."
Claire took the compliment exactly as he intended her to.
"Rest before lunch."
She touched his shoulder.
"Marcus is coming at two."
Hannah looked at Nicholas.
He did not react.
"Why?"
Claire smiled.
"Routine review."
Then she walked away.
Nicholas waited until her heels disappeared down the corridor.
"How is Ethan?"
Hannah's anger returned instantly.
"Terrified."
Nicholas's jaw tightened.
"Walter told me about the box."
"And you still announced a wedding."
"Because whoever sent that box thinks fear is working."
"It is."
Nicholas looked at her.
"Good."
Hannah stared.
"You want me afraid?"
"I want them convinced you are afraid."
"That distinction matters less when an eight-year-old is hiding in a bathroom."
Nicholas flinched.
It was small, but she saw it.
"You are right."
Hannah had prepared herself for an argument.
The apology stopped her.
Nicholas lowered his voice.
"If you want to leave today, I will keep Ethan's medical coverage active until his surgery is complete."
Hannah said nothing.
"No conditions."
"No debt."
"No reason to come back."
"I should have offered that the moment Walter told me what happened."
Hannah looked at him for a long time.
"Why did you not?"
"Because I wanted you to stay."
The answer was honest enough to make her angrier and less angry at the same time.
"That is not a good reason."
"No."
"But it is the true one."
Hannah crossed her arms.
"Why six weeks?"
Nicholas rolled toward the library.
"Because Claire wants the marriage."
"That much is obvious."
"If she believes she is about to get it, she has less reason to run."
"And more reason to finish whatever she started."
"Exactly."
Hannah stopped walking.
"You say that like it is helpful."
Nicholas turned.
"It makes her predictable."
"You have been nearly drugged into confusion, possibly kept weaker than necessary, and someone targeted my brother."
"I did not say safe."
"Good, because I was about to test your cognition again."
They entered the library and closed the doors.
Walter was waiting inside.
A small steel box sat on the desk.
Nicholas looked at it.
"What is that?"
Walter did not answer immediately.
"Something I should have given you months ago."
Nicholas's face hardened.
"You are developing a habit."
Walter accepted the insult.
"Rebecca left it with me three days before the accident."
The room became still.
Nicholas stared at the box.
"You had something from my sister for eight months?"
"She told me not to give it to you unless two things happened."
"What two things?"
Walter looked at Hannah.
"You questioned Dr. Hale."
Then he looked back at Nicholas.
"And you questioned Claire."
Nicholas's voice went dangerously quiet.
"Open it."
"I cannot."
"Why?"
Walter pushed the box toward him.
"Rebecca did not give me the key."
Nicholas laughed once in disbelief.
"Of course she did not."
He touched the lid.
A small engraved letter R appeared near the lock.
Hannah studied it.
"Did she say where the key was?"
"Only one sentence."
Walter took a folded note from his pocket.
Nicholas opened it.
The handwriting was narrow and slanted.
If Nick finally starts asking the right questions, tell him the key is where he refused to look.
Nicholas read it twice.
"That sounds like her."
"What did she want you to look at?" Hannah asked.
He rubbed his jaw.
"Everything."
"Helpful."
"Rebecca enjoyed being difficult."
Hannah thought of Nicholas.
"Family trait."
He ignored that.
"She was chief financial officer of Valenti Logistics for five years."
"Three weeks before the crash she came to me with questions about a holding company."
"Which company?"
"Northstar Advisory."
Walter's face changed.
Hannah noticed.
"You know it."
"I know the name."
"From where?"
"It appears in payments connected to the family trust."
Nicholas looked at him.
"How much?"
"I do not know."
Nicholas's voice hardened.
"That is becoming your favorite sentence."
Walter opened his briefcase and removed several pages.
"Because Rebecca restricted access to the records shortly before she died."
Hannah leaned over the documents.
The payments were listed as consulting services.
They began three years earlier.
At first, they were small by Valenti standards.
Fifty thousand dollars.
Seventy-five thousand.
Then the numbers grew.
Two hundred thousand.
Four hundred thousand.
Nearly one million in a single quarter.
"Who owns Northstar?" Hannah asked.
Walter looked at Nicholas.
"A shell company owns it."
"And who owns the shell?"
"Another company in Delaware."
"Convenient."
Nicholas scanned the payments.
Then he stopped.
"This signature is mine."
Walter nodded.
Hannah looked closer.
The approval line carried Nicholas Valenti's name.
"Did you authorize it?"
"No."
"Could it be electronic?"
"It is my digital signature."
Nicholas's face tightened.
"But I never approved Northstar."
Hannah remembered Claire's sentence.
Nicholas signs whatever is placed in front of him when he is tired enough.
"When were these approvals made?"
Walter pointed.
"Most before the accident."
Then he turned the page.
"These were after."
Hannah looked down.
Six payments had been approved while Nicholas was in intensive rehabilitation.
One was dated during a week Walter had said Nicholas could barely stay awake through a conversation.
Nicholas stared at his own signature.
"Who had access to my authorization device?"
Walter's face was grim.
"Claire often handled paperwork for you during rehabilitation."
"And Hale certified I was competent to sign."
"Yes."
Hannah felt the mystery tighten around the same two names.
Too neatly.
She hated evidence that was too neat.
"What if someone wants Claire and Hale to look guilty?"
Nicholas looked at her.
"Again?"
"Again."
"There is a photograph of Claire at the cabinet."
"With no face."
"She knew about Rebecca."
"Through Hale, possibly."
"She had access to my signature."
"So did other people."
Nicholas tapped the steel box.
"And my sister warned me not to marry her."
"That is stronger."
Walter spoke quietly.
"There is something else."
Nicholas closed his eyes.
"Of course there is."
Walter handed Hannah a printout.
It was the metadata from the fake nursing-agency profile found by Amanda.
"The document was created two weeks ago."
Hannah stared at him.
"Two weeks?"
"Yes."
"Amanda said she saw it months ago."
"Then Amanda lied."
Hannah's mind raced.
"Or the metadata was altered."
"Possible."
"Or she was shown a different copy."
"Possible."
Nicholas looked at Hannah.
"Your witness just became a problem."
"She was terrified."
"Fear does not make people truthful."
Hannah knew he was right.
That made it worse.
Her phone buzzed.
Daniel Cho had sent the diagnostic appointment details.
7:30 p.m.
Hannah showed Nicholas.
"We leave through the north service gate at seven."
Walter nodded.
"I will arrange a vehicle."
Nicholas looked at the box again.
"Not before we find the key."
He read Rebecca's note one more time.
Where he refused to look.
Hannah watched his face.
"What did you refuse to look at after the crash?"
Nicholas's answer came immediately.
"Her apartment."
Walter looked at him.
"You never went back?"
"No."
"Why?"
Nicholas's voice dropped.
"Because I could not walk through a room where she was supposed to come home."
Hannah felt the anger leave her.
Walter stood.
"The apartment has been locked since the estate inventory."
"Then we go now," Nicholas said.
They used a black SUV with no Valenti plates.
Walter drove.
Hannah sat beside Nicholas in the rear.
Rebecca's apartment was on the twenty-first floor of a building overlooking the Chicago River.
Nothing inside had been touched beyond the legal inventory.
A coat still hung near the door.
Three coffee cups sat upside down in a drying rack.
A paperback novel rested open on the arm of the sofa.
Nicholas stopped just inside.
His face changed so completely Hannah looked away to give him privacy.
"She hated that lamp," he said after a moment.
Hannah looked at the ugly brass lamp near the window.
"Why keep it?"
"Our mother gave it to her."
He rolled farther inside.
On the refrigerator was a photograph of Nicholas and Rebecca as teenagers.
Rebecca stood behind him making horns over his head.
Nicholas reached for the picture.
His hand stopped before touching it.
"Where did you refuse to look?" Hannah asked softly.
He looked toward the bedroom.
"Her desk."
They found no key in the drawers.
No key beneath the papers.
No key in the locked document cabinet after Walter opened it.
Then Hannah saw a row of framed family photographs on the shelf.
One frame faced backward.
She picked it up.
The photograph showed Nicholas, Rebecca, and their father beside a sailboat.
A strip of red tape crossed the back.
Under it was a small brass key.
Nicholas stared at it.
"Where I refused to look," he whispered.
Hannah turned the frame over again.
Someone had written on the inside backing in Rebecca's handwriting.
Not the trust.
The crash.
Nicholas went pale.
Walter locked the apartment door behind them.
They returned to the estate without speaking.
The brass key opened Rebecca's steel box.
Inside were financial records, a flash drive, and a sealed envelope addressed to Nicholas.
He opened the envelope first.
There were only two lines.
Nick, if you are reading this, I was right to be afraid.
May you like
Do not trust the accident report.
