Chapter 4 - The Woman Behind Maribel
The police arrived eleven minutes later.
They photographed the broken window, collected the stone, and searched the street. No one had seen who threw it. Our neighbor’s camera captured a dark sedan slowing near the house, but the license plate was hidden beneath snow.
Lily sat on Emily’s lap downstairs, wrapped in a blanket.
“Was Grandma in the car?” she asked.
Emily looked at me before answering.
“We don’t know.”
I hated that this was now part of my daughter’s Christmas.
Not presents.
Not cookies.
A police officer standing beside broken glass.
My mother had spent years claiming she cared more about family than anyone else. Yet the moment she lost control, family became a weapon.
Detective Marcus Hall asked to speak with me privately.
“Does your mother have a history of violence?”
“Not before last night.”
“Threats?”
“Emotional ones. Financial ones.”
“Could she have hired someone to intimidate you?”
The idea should have seemed extreme.
It did not.
“She has access to people through the company.”
“Contractors?”
“Security firms. Drivers. Private investigators.”
Detective Hall wrote something in his notebook.
“Do not contact her directly. Save every message.”
After he left, Dad called a hotel and arranged to stay there. He did not want to return home, and Emily was uncomfortable having him remain with us while Lily was frightened.
Before leaving, he pulled me aside.
“Find Maribel.”
“I will.”
“Your mother protected that account for years. Whatever is behind it is worse than the money.”
At eight thirty, I joined an emergency video meeting with Caroline and our forensic accountant, Samuel Ortiz.
Samuel shared a web of transactions on the screen.
“Maribel Holdings was incorporated in Delaware under a registered agent,” he explained. “Ownership is concealed through two additional companies.”
“Can you trace the money?”
“Most of it went into real estate, private accounts, and cash withdrawals.”
“How much total?”
“Approximately two-point-four million over eight years.”
Emily sat beside me.
“Who benefited?” she asked.
Samuel enlarged a series of payments.
“One name appears indirectly. Rebecca Sloan.”
I recognized it immediately.
Rebecca had been my mother’s closest friend when I was a child. She had attended birthdays, vacations, and company parties. Then, fifteen years earlier, she vanished from our lives.
Mom told us Rebecca had moved to Arizona after a bitter divorce.
“Is she alive?” I asked.
Samuel nodded.
“She lives in Charlottesville.”
“Why would company money go to her?”
“I don’t know.”
Caroline spoke.
“We should also consider that Maribel may be a combination of names.”
I looked at the word.
Mari.
Bel.
Margaret Bennett.
Rebecca Sloan.
My father had always called my mother Margie. Rebecca’s maiden name was Bell.
Maribel.
The company was theirs.
I called the number Samuel found.
A woman answered on the fourth ring.
“Hello?”
“Is this Rebecca Sloan?”
“Who is asking?”
“This is Daniel Bennett.”
Silence.
Then she hung up.
I called again.
No answer.
A text arrived from an unknown number.
Do not call me again. Your mother will know.
I typed back.
She already knows. She framed me for the transfers.
Several minutes passed.
Meet me at noon. Alone.
An address followed.
Emily read the message.
“You’re not going alone.”
“She requested it.”
“And someone threw a rock through our daughter’s window.”
“I’ll tell Detective Hall.”
“No. You’ll tell him, and I’m coming.”
The address belonged to a small diner outside Charlottesville.
Detective Hall arranged for an unmarked car to remain nearby. Emily and I left Lily with my closest friend, Aaron, and his wife. Lily did not want us to go.
“What if Grandma comes?” she asked.
Aaron crouched beside her.
“She won’t get through this door.”
He was a former Marine and currently ran security for a federal courthouse. For the first time that morning, Lily smiled.
Rebecca sat in the back booth of the diner.
She was sixty-three, with auburn hair streaked with gray and eyes that moved constantly toward the windows.
“You brought your wife,” she said.
“Someone threatened our daughter.”
Rebecca looked at Emily’s bruised cheek.
“Margaret did that?”
“Yes,” Emily said.
Rebecca looked away.
“She’s getting worse.”
“You know about the transfers,” I said.
“I know enough.”
“Did you help her steal the money?”
Rebecca’s eyes flashed.
“She didn’t steal it for herself.”
“Then who was it for?”
Rebecca folded her hands tightly.
“Your sister.”
I stared at her.
“Vanessa?”
“Not the Vanessa you grew up with.”
My confusion must have shown.
Rebecca leaned closer.
“Vanessa is not your father’s biological daughter.”
Emily inhaled sharply.
I said nothing.
“That doesn’t explain the money,” I finally replied.
“No. But the man who fathered her does.”
“Who?”
Rebecca looked toward the diner entrance.
A dark SUV had parked outside.
Her face drained of color.
“We have to leave.”
“Rebecca, who is Vanessa’s father?”
She grabbed her purse.
“Thomas Vale.”
The name meant nothing to me.
Then Emily whispered, “The developer?”
I remembered.
Thomas Vale owned Vale Communities, Bennett Development’s largest competitor. He had died in a boating accident fourteen years earlier.
The same year as the Ashford scandal.
Rebecca slid out of the booth.
“Thomas and Margaret had an affair for years. He helped finance your father’s early projects. When Ashford began failing, he threatened to expose her.”
“Expose what?”
“That she had hidden the soil report. That she had moved money. That Vanessa was his daughter.”
The diner door opened.
A man in a black coat entered.
Rebecca looked at him and froze.
“He works for your mother.”
I turned.
The man reached inside his coat.
Emily grabbed the coffee pot from the table and hurled it.
Hot coffee struck his chest. He shouted, stumbling backward.
I pulled Rebecca toward the kitchen as Detective Hall’s officers rushed through the front entrance.
The man ran.
One officer tackled him in the parking lot.
Inside his coat, police found no gun.
They found a syringe.
The clear liquid inside was later identified as a powerful sedative.
Rebecca sat shaking in an ambulance.
Before the doors closed, she caught my hand.
May you like
“Thomas Vale did not die in an accident,” she whispered.
“Your mother was on the boat.”
