Chapter 8
Vanessa agreed to speak only with her attorney present.
Detective Alvarez arranged the interview.
I watched from behind the glass.
For the first time since her arrest, Vanessa looked afraid for reasons that had nothing to do with losing me.
She was afraid of Grant.
“He told me years ago,” she said.
Alvarez leaned forward.
“Told you what?”
“That Claire was going to expose him.”
“And?”
“He followed her.”
“We know that.”
Vanessa swallowed.
“He pulled beside her car and tried to force her toward the shoulder.”
My fists tightened.
“He said she wouldn’t stop.”
“What happened next?”
“He bumped her rear quarter panel.”
The room felt smaller.
“On purpose?” Alvarez asked.
“Yes.”
Claire’s car had spun across the highway and crashed into a barrier.
She nearly died.
Grant had told our mother it was an accident.
It was not.
Alvarez continued.
“Why would Grant tell you this?”
“Because he wanted me to understand what he was capable of.”
Vanessa started crying.
I felt no sympathy.
She had slapped my daughter.
She had framed Elena.
She had helped Grant try to destroy my life.
But I listened.
“He said family loyalty was just another word for leverage.”
Alvarez placed a photograph of Lily on the table.
“And what did you do?”
Vanessa looked away.
“I helped him.”
“Why?”
“Money.”
There was the truth.
No romance.
No complicated excuse.
Money.
Grant had paid her before she dated me.
He taught her what I liked.
What restaurants I visited.
Which charities I supported.
He even told her about Claire.
Vanessa studied my grief like a job description.
Then she entered my life.
At first, the plan was simple.
Get close.
Gain access.
Find Claire’s evidence.
When she could not find it, Grant changed the plan.
They would build evidence that I was unstable and negligent.
Grant would challenge my leadership at the company.
He would use the family scandal to force the board to remove me.
Then he would attack my role as trustee.
Vanessa was supposed to become the grieving fiancée who “tried to save Lily.”
Elena ruined everything.
“She saw too much,” Vanessa said.
“So you framed her,” Alvarez replied.
Vanessa nodded.
“I thought if Elena was gone, Lily would stop talking.”
Behind the glass, I had to turn away.
Thomas stood beside me.
“Daniel.”
“I brought Vanessa into my daughter’s home.”
“You were deceived.”
“I still brought her there.”
“You cannot change that.”
“No.”
I looked through the glass at Vanessa.
“But I can make sure she never gets near Lily again.”
Vanessa gave police the location Grant had mentioned.
An old hunting cabin owned by one of his friends.
Police found the cabin empty.
But they found fresh tire tracks.
They also found another burner phone.
On it was a draft message addressed to my mother.
You chose Daniel again.
Now live with what happens next.
Police assigned protection to Margaret.
She moved into a hotel under guard.
She asked to see Lily.
I refused.
For the first time in my life, my mother did not argue.
“I understand,” she said.
Days passed.
Grant remained missing.
The company hired an outside forensic firm.
The stolen amount grew from eight million to eleven.
Then fourteen.
Grant had been taking money for almost a decade.
My father might have suspected him.
Old emails suggested that was why he made me CEO.
Grant had spent years believing I stole his future.
In reality, Dad had been protecting the company from him.
Elena stayed with us.
She refused extra money.
“You don’t owe me for believing me,” she said.
“I owe you for protecting Lily.”
“I love Lily.”
“I know.”
That was exactly why Vanessa hated her.
Elena had been the one person Lily trusted enough to resist Vanessa.
One evening, I found Lily sitting inside Claire’s closet.
My heart stopped.
“Sweetheart?”
She looked at me.
“I’m okay.”
I sat beside her.
She held one of Claire’s old sweaters.
“Do you think Mommy knew I would remember her?”
My throat tightened.
“Yes.”
“How?”
“Because she loved you too much to be forgotten.”
Lily leaned against me.
“Vanessa said Mommy would be disappointed in me.”
I closed my eyes.
“For what?”
“For making you sad.”
I took Lily’s face gently in my hands.
“Listen to me.”
She looked at me.
“You never have to protect adults from the truth.”
Her eyes filled with tears.
“You’re not mad?”
“At you?”
She nodded.
“Never.”
She hugged me.
Then she whispered, “I know where Uncle Grant put the little phone.”
I froze.
“What little phone?”
“The one he used when he came here.”
She stood and walked toward Claire’s shoe shelf.
Behind a storage box was a narrow gap.
Lily reached inside.
Her small fingers pulled out a black phone.
“I saw him hide it.”
I stared at the device.
It had been sitting inside my house for months.
Police collected it that night.
The phone was locked.
Forensic technicians opened it the next morning.
It contained recordings.
Messages.
Bank account information.
And one video.
Grant had apparently recorded Vanessa without her knowing.
In the video, they argued inside my office.
Vanessa said, “I’m done hurting that little girl.”
Grant laughed.
“You don’t get to be done.”
“She’s terrified.”
“That’s the point.”
Vanessa shook her head.
“I’ll tell Daniel.”
Grant stepped closer to her.
“And I’ll tell the police you planned everything.”
“You planned it!”
“No one will believe you.”
Then he said something that made the detective stop the video.
“I got rid of Claire’s evidence once. I can get rid of yours too.”
Alvarez looked at me.
“That sounds like an admission.”
“To what?”
“Obstruction at minimum.”
I stared at Grant’s frozen face on the screen.
Then a technician entered.
“We found a GPS history on the phone.”
Alvarez stood.
“Where?”
The technician placed a map on the table.
A location blinked less than twenty miles away.
Grant was not running across the country.
May you like
He had been hiding near us the entire time.
And the last location recorded was outside Lily’s school.
