Chapter 4 - THE LAST ARGUMENT
The last conversation I had with Amelia was an argument.
For eight years, I remembered it as evidence that she had been unraveling.
Now I remembered it as evidence that I had failed her.
She was twenty-nine.
Smart.
Stubborn.
Vice president of community programs at Reed Holdings, though she had never cared much about the title.
She came into my office carrying a folder.
“Veronica is stealing from you.”
I laughed.
Actually laughed.
Amelia slammed bank records onto my desk.
There were payments from the Reed Foundation to three consulting firms she believed were connected to Veronica.
I told her our auditors had reviewed them.
She told me our auditors were seeing what Veronica wanted them to see.
Then she said something unforgivable to the man I was then.
“You trust her because she tells you you’re still the smartest person in every room.”
I stood.
I told her to leave.
Amelia refused.
She said she had copied records and would take them to outside counsel.
That was when Veronica entered.
I remember her calm voice.
Her hurt expression.
Her asking Amelia why she was doing this “to the family.”
Then Veronica produced her own documents.
They appeared to show Amelia had authorized an unauthorized $380,000 grant transfer.
I believed them.
God help me, I believed them.
Amelia looked at me and said, “You know I didn’t do this.”
I told her to surrender her company access while we investigated.
She stared at me as if I had struck her.
Two days later, she disappeared.
For years I told myself she ran because she was guilty.
Then the car was found.
Guilt became grief.
I never investigated the original financial accusation deeply enough because Veronica told me pursuing it would dishonor Amelia after death.
Daniel listened without interrupting.
“What happened to the $380,000 transfer?”
“I don’t know.”
“You never checked?”
The shame in that answer nearly choked me.
“No.”
He requested the old foundation archive.
By sunrise, an accountant pulled the transaction.
The transfer had not gone to Amelia.
It went to a company called Meridian Outreach.
The authorization carried Amelia’s login.
But the receiving account had been closed two months later.
Daniel asked who created Meridian.
The corporate registry showed a nominee manager.
The nominee had also formed V. Cole Consulting.
Vincent Cole again.
The accident witness.
The recipient of Veronica’s $75,000 payment.
The man linked to the company used to frame Amelia financially.
That was the first complete payoff.
Amelia had been telling the truth in my office.
The evidence against her had been manufactured through a company tied to the witness who later helped declare her accident exactly that—an accident.
I sat behind my desk while morning light reached the windows.
“I threw my daughter out.”
Daniel’s voice was quiet.
“You suspended her access.”
“She thought I chose Veronica.”
“Did you?”
I looked toward the ceiling above us, where Maisie slept wearing Amelia’s locket.
“Yes.”
That truth hurt more than pretending I had been tricked.
Veronica had deceived me.
But I had made the choice.
Then the house manager knocked.
“Mr. Reed?”
“What?”
“Maisie is awake.”
She hesitated.
May you like
“She says she remembers the name of the man who grabbed her mother.”
📖 Maisie’s memory gave us our first lead to Amelia’s recent disappearance, but the name she whispered belonged to someone I had paid to search for my daughter eight years ago. 👇
