Chapter 24 - VANESSA’S SECOND LIE
Grace questioned Vanessa at the sheriff’s office.
Harper watched through the interview-room glass with Owen beside her.
Vanessa described Dylan’s business partner, Marcus Dane, as a real-estate investor who specialized in distressed properties. Dylan had met him at a private club two years earlier.
According to Vanessa, Marcus had offered to erase their debts if they obtained control of Elaine’s lake house.
“He knew the property wasn’t ours,” Vanessa said.
“Then why did he want it?” Grace asked.
“He said the land would be developed into luxury cabins.”
“Did you see plans?”
“No.”
“Contracts?”
“Dylan handled them.”
Grace placed Adrian Vale’s photograph on the table.
Vanessa’s breathing changed.
Harper saw it immediately.
“You know him,” Grace said.
“No.”
“That was not a question.”
Vanessa looked toward the observation window, unable to see Harper behind the darkened glass.
“I saw him once.”
Harper’s jaw tightened.
Grace waited.
Vanessa pressed both palms against the table.
“It was after Harper’s memorial. Mom was upstairs. Dad was still alive then. A man came to the house and argued with him.”
“What did they say?”
“I couldn’t hear everything.”
“Try.”
Vanessa closed her eyes.
“Dad said, ‘You promised she would come home.’ The man said Harper had made a choice and the country could not afford the truth.”
Harper stopped breathing for a moment.
Their father had known Vale.
Vanessa continued.
“Then Dad gave him a box.”
“The box from Germany?” Grace asked.
“I think so.”
Harper looked at Owen.
Elaine had said she hid it at the lake house.
One of them was lying.
Grace slid the photograph closer.
“Was this the man?”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you tell Harper?”
Vanessa opened her eyes.
“Because Dad made me promise.”
“Your father died nine years ago.”
“I know.”
“And you still said nothing after learning Harper was alive?”
Vanessa’s face crumpled.
“I thought Dad had betrayed her.”
Harper entered the room.
Vanessa looked up sharply.
“You told us Mom hid the box,” Harper said.
“I didn’t know what was true.”
“So you chose another lie.”
“I was scared.”
“You were scared at the reunion too. You still found the courage to apologize because people were watching.”
Vanessa flinched.
“That’s not fair.”
“No. Fair would have been telling me before someone fired through the lake-house window.”
Vanessa stood.
“I was trying to protect Dad’s memory.”
“From what?”
“From you.”
The words hung between them.
Harper’s face became still.
Vanessa immediately regretted them.
“I didn’t mean—”
“Yes, you did.”
Harper turned toward the door.
Vanessa reached for her, then stopped herself.
“Wait. There’s something else.”
Harper did not move.
“Two weeks before Dad died, he gave me a bank-deposit key. He said never to use it unless someone came asking about Raven Three.”
Grace straightened.
“Where is it?”
Vanessa’s eyes filled with shame.
“I used the box as collateral for one of Dylan’s loans.”
Harper turned slowly.
“You gave a lender access to it?”
“I didn’t know what was inside.”
“Which bank?”
“It wasn’t a bank.”
Vanessa whispered the name of a private storage company in Richmond.
Grace checked her phone.
The company had been purchased six months earlier.
Its new owner was an investment firm controlled by Marcus Dane.
Harper placed both hands on the table.
The hidden box had not been stolen from the lake house.
Vanessa had unknowingly delivered its location directly to the men searching for it.
Grace looked at the clock.
“When was the last payment due?”
May you like
Vanessa’s voice dropped.
“Today.”
