Chapter 6 - GRANT’S SECRETI slapped Grant before he finished saying my name.
She had been Vanessa’s assistant for eighteen months.
According to employee records, Rachel resigned the day before the fire.
Except she hadn’t.
Her mother had reported her missing.
Vanessa told police Rachel had flown to Spain with a boyfriend.
There was no flight.
No boyfriend.
No resignation email originating from Rachel’s device.
Someone had manufactured her disappearance.
Then her body appeared in my burned house wearing my engagement ring.
“This wasn’t panic,” I told Harper.
“No.”
“It was planned.”
“Yes.”
“How long?”
“Long enough to obtain your dental records.”
That meant Vanessa had decided to kill me before asking for my signature.
The crying.
The bourbon.
The frozen account.
All theater.
“What did Rachel know?”
Harper slid over another folder.
“Three days before the fire, Rachel contacted an attorney specializing in whistleblower cases.”
My blood went cold.
“About Bennett Biomedical?”
“Most likely.”
“What kind of whistleblower case?”
“We don’t know.”
“Her attorney?”
“Dead.”
I stared.
Harper quickly added, “Heart attack. Eighty-three years old. Not suspicious.”
“Good. For a second I thought everyone who knew my sister was dropping dead.”
His expression told me not to joke.
I stopped.
We found Rachel’s cloud backup two hours before the wedding.
She had saved photographs.
Invoices.
Transfers.
Shell corporations.
Vanessa had been moving Bennett Biomedical money for nearly a year.
Not thousands.
Millions.
Elliot helped her build the accounts.
Rachel discovered them while preparing tax records.
Then she discovered something worse.
Vanessa had forged Dad’s signature on preliminary merger documents with Mercer Global.
But Grant’s signature did not appear anywhere.
Another Mercer did.
Victor Mercer.
Grant’s uncle.
Chairman of Mercer Global.
A man my father openly despised.
I remembered arguments now.
Dad once called Victor “a shark wearing cuff links.”
Grant and Victor had a difficult relationship. Grant ran the company’s technology investment division, while Victor controlled the board.
Suddenly my sister marrying Grant looked different.
Maybe Grant wasn’t the mastermind.
Maybe he was the access point.
“What was Vanessa buying?” I asked.
“Protection,” Harper said. “Potentially.”
“From Victor?”
“We found calls between them dating back eleven months.”
Before Dad died.
“Does Grant know?”
“No evidence.”
I looked at the clock.
The wedding began in two hours.
Harper’s phone rang.
He answered.
His expression changed.
“What?”
He moved away, listened, then ended the call.
“Vanessa’s safe-deposit box.”
“You got it?”
“Empty.”
I swore.
“But the bank’s hallway camera shows her giving the red folder to someone.”
“Who?”
Harper turned his screen.
Victor Mercer.
Everything aligned.
Rachel discovered embezzlement.
Vanessa needed my approval to access the trust and control shares.
I refused.
Rachel became a liability.
I became an obstacle.
Victor wanted Bennett Biomedical.
Vanessa wanted money and my life.
The fire solved everything.
Except me.
“What about Elliot?”
“Still missing.”
“He helped Vanessa.”
“Probably.”
“So either he ran—”
“Or he became another liability.”
I stood.
Marisol immediately said, “No.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You stood with determination. I know that look now.”
She helped me into my coat anyway.
At Saint Aurelia, Harper brought me through a service entrance.
From behind a curtain, I saw the wedding.
Vanessa had spared no expense.
White roses climbed every column.
Crystal chandeliers hung over mirrored tables.
A string orchestra played beneath a ceiling painted like a European cathedral.
Our mother sat in the front row.
She looked older than I remembered.
That hurt more than the burns.
“Can I tell her first?” I whispered.
Harper shook his head.
“If your mother reacts, word may reach Vanessa.”
“She thinks her daughter is dead.”
“I know.”
I hated him for being right.
Then Grant entered.
Seven months disappeared.
I remembered Sunday mornings.
Burned pancakes.
His hand against my back when we crossed streets.
The night Dad died, when Grant sat on the bathroom floor with me until sunrise because I couldn’t stop crying.
I remembered saying yes beside the lake.
And then I remembered the newspaper.
Three months.
He had waited three months before beginning a relationship with Vanessa.
Whatever explanation existed, it would need to be extraordinary.
Vanessa appeared at the ballroom doors.
She wore our mother’s veil.
My veil.
Mom had promised it to me when Grant and I announced our engagement.
Vanessa smiled at the cameras.
I felt something inside me become very calm.
Harper touched his earpiece.
“Everyone is positioned.”
I stepped forward.
He caught my arm.
“Claire.”
“What?”
“Whatever happens, don’t let her make this emotional.”
I looked at him.
“She burned down my house with another woman inside and stole my life.”
“Exactly.”
“So emotional is probably unavoidable.”
I walked through the doors.
The first guest saw me.
Then another.
Then another.
By the time Vanessa looked up, half the room had turned.
Her face changed.
That moment was worth every painful step.
I walked down the aisle.
The rest happened almost exactly as I had imagined.
The necklace.
The memories.
Her accidental use of my name.
The recording.
But I hadn’t expected Grant.
He stared at me like a starving man looking at food.
When I accused Vanessa of trying to murder me, he didn’t defend her.
He moved toward me.
Vanessa grabbed him.
“Grant, she’s unstable.”
He looked at her hand on his arm.
Then he removed it.
“Don’t touch me.”
The ballroom erupted in whispers.
Victor Mercer rose from his seat near the front.
“Grant, this is obviously some sick stunt.”
Harper watched him.
So did I.
Victor saw the evidence bag in my hand.
His expression barely changed.
Barely.
Vanessa saw Harper approaching.
Then she did something I did not expect.
She laughed.
“You think you won?”
My sister kicked aside her bouquet.
“You have no idea what you just destroyed.”
Grant stared.
“Vanessa, what are you talking about?”
She looked at him with hatred.
“I was trying to save you.”
“From Claire?”
“From your uncle.”
Victor’s face tightened.
Vanessa pointed toward him.
“He killed your father.”
The ballroom went silent again.
Grant stopped breathing.
His father, Thomas Mercer, had died six years earlier in what police called a boating accident.
Victor stepped forward.
“That’s enough.”
Vanessa laughed hysterically.
“No. Claire wants truth? Let’s give everyone truth.”
She turned toward me.
“You think the fire was about your money?”
My skin prickled.
“You killed Rachel.”
“Rachel was already dead when I got there.”
Harper moved closer.
“Vanessa, say nothing else until—”
“No!”
She ripped the veil from her head.
“You all think I’m the monster?”
Her eyes locked on mine.
“I set the fire, Claire.”
Grant recoiled.
My mother screamed.
Vanessa continued.
“But I set it because Victor told me Rachel’s body was already inside.”
My knees weakened.
“What?”
“He said all I had to do was make sure you never walked out.”
Victor lunged toward her.
Officers intercepted him.
Vanessa backed away.
Then she smiled at me.
A broken, terrifying smile.
“And if you want to know who dragged you from the house and left you beside that road…”
May you like
She looked directly at Grant.
“…ask your fiancé.”
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