Chapter 6 - The Other Daughter
We returned home under police escort.
Lily ran into Emily’s arms, but her face carried a seriousness no seven-year-old should possess.
“The lady said you had an accident,” she told us. “She said she was taking me to the hospital.”
Emily held her tighter.
“You did exactly what you were supposed to do.”
“I didn’t open the door.”
“No,” Aaron said. “She went upstairs and locked herself in the bathroom.”
Lily looked embarrassed.
I knelt beside her.
“That was smart.”
“Grandma taught me not to trust strangers.”
The irony was painful.
Detective Hall recommended that we leave the house temporarily. Aaron offered his family’s cabin in the Blue Ridge Mountains, a secluded property with cameras and a gated road.
Emily shook her head.
“I don’t want Lily hidden in a cabin while these people control our lives.”
“Then what do you want?” I asked.
“I want them arrested.”
“So do I.”
“Then stop reacting to your mother and start getting ahead of her.”
Her strength silenced me.
Emily had been insulted, assaulted, and blamed, yet she was thinking more clearly than anyone else.
She pointed to the leather folder.
“Margaret is protecting herself from the Ashford evidence and Thomas’s death. Claire wants revenge for her father. Vanessa is afraid of losing everything. Find the one thing they all need.”
“The waterproof case,” I said.
Emily nodded.
“If Thomas’s evidence survived, whoever has it controls the truth.”
Rebecca believed the case had never been recovered because authorities searched the wrong location. Margaret had told police Thomas fell from the boat near the center of Lake Anna. But weather records showed strong winds that night, and Rebecca remembered Thomas mentioning a private cove.
My father knew the cove.
“Vale owned land near the eastern shore,” he said during a conference call. “There was an abandoned boathouse.”
Detective Hall sent divers to the area.
Meanwhile, the Bennett Development board suspended my mother and me pending the investigation. That meant neither of us controlled operations.
But the lake-house purchase was canceled.
At 4:16 p.m., the seller’s attorney notified us that the deposit had been returned to the company.
My mother called from a different number.
This time, I answered and recorded it.
“You embarrassed me,” she said.
“You assaulted Emily.”
“You took away my home.”
“It was never your home.”
“Your father promised it.”
“He cannot gift company property.”
Her breathing became uneven.
“Do you understand what people will think?”
“That you tried to steal a lake house?”
“That my son humiliated me on Christmas.”
“Your reputation is not more important than my wife.”
“She is enjoying this.”
I looked across the room at Emily, who was helping Lily pack while trying not to cry.
“No. She’s surviving it.”
Mom’s voice softened.
“Daniel, I made a mistake.”
It was the closest she had come to an apology.
“Say what you did.”
“I lost my temper.”
“Say it.”
Silence.
“Say you hit Emily.”
“I’m not going to participate in your little courtroom game.”
“Then we’re done.”
“Wait.”
I nearly ended the call.
“Claire is dangerous,” Mom said.
“You know she tried to take Lily?”
“I suspected she might do something.”
“You suspected?”
“She contacted me three weeks ago.”
“What did she want?”
“The truth about her father.”
“And what did you tell her?”
“That he was unstable.”
“Did you kill him?”
Mom inhaled sharply.
“How dare you?”
“It’s a simple question.”
“He attacked me.”
“So Dad’s story was true?”
“Robert told you?”
“He said you claimed Thomas fell during a struggle.”
“That is what happened.”
“Then why pay people for fourteen years?”
“To protect this family!”
“From the truth?”
“From scandal.”
That answer told me everything.
Not innocence.
Scandal.
“What does Claire want now?” I asked.
“She believes Robert helped cover up Thomas’s death.”
“Did he?”
“Not knowingly.”
My father had disposed of my mother’s wet clothing that night. He had repaired scratches on their car. He had lied to police about the time she returned home.
Maybe he had believed he was protecting a frightened wife.
Legally, it could make him an accessory.
“Where is Claire?”
“I don’t know.”
“Call her.”
“She won’t answer.”
“Then send me every message she wrote.”
Mom hesitated.
“If I do, will you restore my access?”
“No.”
“Then why would I help you?”
“Because Claire targeted your granddaughter.”
Another silence.
“I’ll send them,” she said.
The messages arrived ten minutes later.
Most were demands for information.
But one included a photograph of Thomas’s old boathouse.
On the wall behind Claire was a rusted metal sign.
Emily enlarged the image.
“Look at the date.”
The photograph had been taken that morning.
Claire was not running blindly.
She had already found the cove.
I called Detective Hall.
Before he answered, Lily screamed from the hallway.
We ran toward her.
A Christmas card had been pushed beneath the front door.
Inside was a photograph of my father leaving his hotel.
May you like
Written across his face in red marker were three words.
He dies tonight.
