Chapter 17 - THE RED BOOK
Mara Voss was twenty-six and lived under a different last name.
She had never known that a fund had been created partly to compensate her father's family for losses incurred before she was born.
Jonathan said Stephen discovered the diversion while representing several injured investors.
He kept copies of the evidence in a handwritten ledger called the Red Book.
After his death, Elena Vale attempted to deliver the ledger to authorities.
Her disappearance became the second funeral Cassandra had hinted at.
We still didn't know whether Elena had been harmed or had chosen to hide.
Rebecca refused to let anyone announce a murder without evidence.
Miller treated each possibility seriously.
The new lead took investigators back to Archive 17.
A photograph from the storage unit showed a bookshelf beside a lake-house fireplace.
Behind the books was a small brass plate engraved with two initials.
E.V.
Nadia identified the house as property once owned by Elena and later transferred to a charity controlled by my mother.
The legal team sought a court-authorized search of the property.
While they prepared, Jonathan sent records documenting his warnings and the response he received.
They showed my father knew the restitution beneficiaries existed.
They also showed that the disputed transfers had been deliberately disguised as management fees.
At the bank's deadline, Rebecca notified the relevant parties of the disputed collateral and the ongoing court proceedings.
The lender reserved its rights but declined to accept my supposed consent as conclusive.
For the first time, the deadline passed without my father getting what he wanted.
That evening Miller called from the lake house.
A search team had found the brass plate.
Behind it was an old recessed compartment.
Inside lay a red leather ledger wrapped in plastic.
Its pages listed dates, account numbers, initials, and handwritten approvals spanning nearly twenty years.
The numbers matched transfers Elaine had already traced.
Some payments were marked D.C.
Others carried a neat letter B.
I stared at the scanned page.
“Beatrice,” I whispered.
Rebecca didn't say the initial proved anything on its own.
But the ledger cross-referenced payments to events my mother had organized through her foundation.
On one page, an entry matched the amount paid to Cassandra after Stephen's death.
On another, a separate payment led to a travel agency that had booked Elena's flight out of the country.
The flight was dated four days after Elena's memorial service.
Elena might have survived the disappearance after all.
That night I received a voice message from a woman speaking with a trembling voice.
“I am not dead, Savannah.”
A pause followed.
“I helped your mother, and I can prove it.”
Then the voice added something far more frightening.
May you like
“The Red Book is real, but the last twelve pages were removed before the investigators found it.”
