Chapter 8 - VERONICA’S VERSION
Daniel insisted Veronica’s next conversation be recorded through attorneys.
For once, she agreed.
We sat in my conference room.
Veronica across from me.
Her lawyer beside her.
Daniel beside me.
No ballroom.
No champagne.
No social mask except the one she carried inside herself.
“When did you learn Amelia survived?” I asked.
“Approximately seven years ago.”
The number hit me.
I gripped the table.
“You knew for seven years.”
“I received a photograph.”
“From whom?”
“Harold.”
“Wynn?”
“Yes.”
“Where was she?”
“New Hampshire, I think.”
“With Maisie?”
“She was holding a baby.”
I could barely breathe.
“And you didn’t tell me.”
Veronica’s eyes hardened defensively.
“I believed Amelia was dangerous.”
“To whom?”
“To you.”
I actually laughed.
“My daughter was alive with my granddaughter and you protected me from that?”
“She hated you.”
“That was mine to face.”
“She threatened to accuse me of crimes.”
“Were they crimes?”
Her attorney objected to the wording.
I ignored him.
Veronica continued.
“She wanted money.”
“Did she ask you?”
“Through Harold.”
That was new.
“What did she ask for?”
“One million dollars and complete independence.”
Daniel leaned forward.
“Do you have the demand?”
“No.”
“Email?”
“No.”
“Letter?”
“No.”
“Text?”
“No.”
“How was it communicated?”
“Harold told me.”
Convenient.
“Did you pay?”
“Yes.”
My stomach dropped.
“How much?”
“Eight hundred thousand.”
“To Amelia?”
“I believed so.”
Daniel asked for records.
Veronica’s attorney said they would review.
If true, it complicated everything.
Amelia might have accepted money to stay hidden.
Or Wynn might have invented the demand.
Or Veronica might have paid him for something else.
We did not know.
Then I asked the question that had been burning inside me.
“Why keep searching for her after paying?”
Veronica blinked.
“What?”
“The surveillance invoices continued.”
Daniel placed copies on the table.
Subject A.R.
Child confirmed.
Relocation pending.
Maintain distance.
Veronica stared at them.
“I did not authorize all of these.”
“Your account paid them.”
“Harold handled discretion.”
For the first time, fear appeared beneath her anger.
Maybe she was lying.
Maybe she had also lost control of the man she hired.
That changed what I believed.
Veronica was still central.
Still deceitful.
Still responsible for keeping Amelia from me.
But Harold Wynn might not simply be her obedient instrument.
He had received money.
Information.
Access.
And eight years to build secrets of his own.
The forensic review of the motel backpack fiber arrived that afternoon.
It matched the manufacturer and dye profile of a common hiking backpack brand.
Useful, not conclusive.
Then investigators recovered something far better from Wynn’s house under a new warrant.
A locked file drawer contained photographs.
Dozens of them.
Amelia over seven years.
Maisie at age one.
Age three.
Age five.
School entrances.
Apartment buildings.
Grocery stores.
Parks.
My granddaughter had been watched for almost her entire life.
At the bottom of the drawer was a photograph dated three months earlier.
Amelia standing beside a man I recognized immediately.
Daniel Price.
May you like
My attorney.
📖 Harold’s surveillance file proved Amelia had been watched for years, but the photograph of my own attorney meeting her threatened the one alliance I still trusted. 👇
