Chapter 5 - The House in VirginiaThe flight north took less than two hours.
Neither did I.
Lydia’s hand shook badly enough that the gun’s barrel traced tiny circles through the air.
“Put it down,” Victor said.
“Don’t come closer.”
“No one is coming closer.”
Her eyes found mine.
“You need to listen to me.”
I glanced at the gun.
“You have an unusual way of asking.”
She looked at it as if she had forgotten she was holding it.
Then she lowered her arm.
Victor moved immediately.
Two security men stepped into the room.
Lydia surrendered the weapon without resistance.
“I wasn’t going to shoot anyone.”
Victor took it.
“Then carrying it was ambitious.”
She almost laughed.
Almost.
Then she looked at me.
“Grant is going to kill me.”
The words changed everything.
I studied her face.
“What did you do?”
“I copied everything.”
She raised the flash drive.
“Everything from the hidden ledger.”
Victor stared at it.
“What hidden ledger?”
Lydia swallowed.
“The one Grant keeps off the official system.”
I felt something inside me settle.
Not shock.
Confirmation.
“You were helping him.”
“For two years.”
“With the missing money?”
“Yes.”
“How much?”
Her eyes filled.
“More than forty-two million.”
Victor’s voice became sharp.
“How much?”
“Almost three hundred.”
The room went silent except for the burning papers.
Lydia sat down.
She looked smaller than she had at galas, stripped of diamonds, photographers, and confidence.
“I met Grant through Harrison,” she said. “My company handled branding for three Whitmore developments.”
“And when did the affair begin?” I asked.
Her eyes dropped.
“Eighteen months ago.”
The number hurt less than I expected.
Maybe because Grant had already destroyed whatever remained between us.
“Did Harrison know?”
“About us? Yes.”
That surprised me.
“Celeste?”
“I don’t know.”
Victor extinguished the fire and closed the door.
“Start from the beginning.”
Lydia told us Grant had created a network of consulting companies to move money out of Whitmore Atlantic.
Some transfers looked like development fees.
Others appeared to be charitable grants.
My foundation had become one of the channels.
Grant believed charitable accounts received less scrutiny.
“He told me the money belonged to him anyway,” Lydia said.
I almost smiled.
“Of course he did.”
“He said Harrison stole Whitmore Atlantic from his own family decades ago, and eventually Grant planned to take everything back.”
Victor’s expression hardened.
“What did he mean by that?”
“I don’t know.”
Lydia pushed the flash drive toward me.
“There are audio files.”
“What kind?”
“Meetings between Grant and Harrison.”
I looked at Victor.
He inserted the drive into a secure laptop.
Folders appeared.
Hundreds of files.
We opened the most recent audio recording.
Grant’s voice filled the room.
“You said Marlowe was gone.”
Harrison answered.
“The old man is dead.”
“The granddaughter isn’t.”
“She doesn’t know what she owns.”
“She asked about the foundation.”
“Then distract her.”
“With what?”
A pause.
Then Harrison said something that made the entire room go quiet.
“You married her. Act like it.”
I stared at the laptop.
Grant responded.
“And when that stops working?”
Harrison’s answer was colder.
“Then make sure she signs.”
The recording ended.
Victor looked at me.
“Signs what?”
Lydia whispered, “A postnuptial agreement.”
I remembered it.
Grant had brought it up six months earlier.
He claimed their estate lawyers were updating family documents.
I refused to sign without independent counsel.
He had been furious for weeks.
“What did it contain?”
Lydia looked sick.
“A clause transferring voting authority connected to marital assets.”
Victor cursed under his breath.
I understood immediately.
“If I had signed it, Grant might have tried to claim control over the trust.”
“Yes.”
“Would it have worked?”
“No,” Victor said. “But he clearly believed it might.”
There were more recordings.
In one, Harrison warned Grant to stop moving money.
In another, Grant threatened to expose something from the 1990s.
Then we found a conversation recorded six weeks earlier.
Harrison’s voice:
“You don’t understand Victor Kane.”
Grant:
“I’m not afraid of your old ghosts.”
“You should be.”
“I’m done waiting for Elena to cooperate.”
“If you hurt that woman, you will bring the Marlowe trust down on all of us.”
Grant laughed.
“She loves me.”
Harrison answered:
“No, son. She remembers loving you. Those are not the same thing.”
I leaned back.
For the first time, I wondered whether Harrison had understood more than I thought.
Not enough to intervene.
But enough to know disaster was coming.
Lydia began crying.
“I wanted out.”
“Why didn’t you leave?”
“Grant had records proving I helped create the shell companies.”
“So you stayed.”
“I thought he loved me.”
The words were pathetic.
And familiar.
I could have hated her.
Part of me wanted to.
But Lydia was sitting in a burned conference room at two in the morning holding evidence against a man she believed might kill her.
Hatred could wait.
“Why leave the photograph?” I asked.
“To scare Grant.”
“You knew I’d find it?”
“I hoped someone would.”
Victor looked suspicious.
“What does the message mean?”
Lydia wiped her face.
“Grant told me something once when he was drunk.”
“What?”
“He said marrying you wasn’t an accident.”
My blood turned cold.
I stared at her.
“What does that mean?”
“He knew who you were before you met.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“That’s impossible.”
“He said Harrison had spent years tracking the Marlowe heirs.”
Victor’s face became unreadable.
Lydia continued.
“He knew you controlled something connected to Whitmore Atlantic. He just didn’t know how much.”
Every memory of my marriage suddenly shifted.
The coffee shop where Grant and I met.
His surprise that we worked in neighboring buildings.
The way he somehow knew which charities I volunteered with.
The coincidence of seeing him everywhere during our first few months.
None of it had been coincidence.
I felt nauseated.
Victor said quietly, “Elena.”
I raised one hand.
Not yet.
I needed to think.
Lydia whispered, “Grant didn’t fall in love with you by accident.”
I looked at her.
“Did he ever love me?”
She did not answer.
That was answer enough.
Then Victor’s phone rang again.
He listened.
His expression darkened.
“What?”
I stood.
He ended the call.
“Harrison is missing.”
“Missing?”
“He left the estate after we did.”
“Where did he go?”
Victor looked at the flash drive.
“I think he’s trying to reach whatever Grant is trying to hide.”
“Where?”
He hesitated.
“There’s a property in Virginia.”
“What property?”
“A house Samuel Marlowe purchased thirty-one years ago.”
I frowned.
“Why would my grandfather own a house with Harrison?”
“He didn’t own it with Harrison.”
Victor picked up his coat.
“He bought it from him.”
“What’s there?”
Victor looked at me.
“The original Whitmore records.”
Lydia stood.
“Grant mentioned Virginia.”
“When?”
“Tonight.”
My heartbeat accelerated.
“What did he say?”
May you like
She swallowed.
“He said by sunrise, there wouldn’t be anything left there for you to find.”
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