Chapter 17 - Grant and Vanessa
Grant denied sending the message.
Forensic specialists examined Vanessa’s phone.
The account had been deleted, but remnants remained.
G.H. communicated through an encrypted application.
We needed more than initials.
Diane supplied payment records.
One of Grant’s consulting entities had paid her.
Still not Vanessa.
Then Caleb remembered something.
“Vanessa started refusing my instructions about six weeks ago.”
That matched Grant’s first known contact with Diane.
Caleb thought Vanessa had simply become greedy.
Instead, she had switched patrons.
Grant learned about Caleb’s infiltration operation through Diane.
Rather than expose it, he hijacked it.
He paid Diane.
Diane connected him to Vanessa.
Grant then encouraged Vanessa to provoke me.
Why?
Because Grant knew Dad’s audit might eventually clear Caleb and point toward him.
If Caleb’s operation destroyed my credibility first, Grant could survive both threats.
Vanessa played them against each other.
Caleb thought she worked for him.
Grant thought she worked for him.
She took money from both.
And Sophie paid the emotional price.
Vanessa finally admitted communicating with Grant.
“He offered more.”
There it was.
No ideology.
No complicated justification.
Money.
“What did Grant ask you to do?”
“Make Richard look unstable.”
“With Sophie?”
“He said whatever worked.”
Grant’s attorneys called that statement unreliable.
Fair.
Vanessa had lied repeatedly.
We needed corroboration.
Diane had it.
An audio recording of Grant telling her:
“Vanessa knows where Richard breaks. Let her use it.”
That still didn’t explicitly name Sophie.
Then another recording:
“If the child cries, even better.”
Eleanor left the room when she heard it.
I stayed.
I forced myself.
Grant had never touched Sophie.
He had treated her distress as useful.
That was enough to end any remaining ambiguity about his character.
But the financial investigation still required proof that Grant framed Caleb.
Attachment C linked his credentials.
The laptop linked remote access.
Dad’s report connected the pattern.
Now Diane provided emails Grant had paid her to steal from Jonathan’s files.
One included Dad writing:
GRANT KNOWS I’M REOPENING HAYES. WATCH HIM.
Grant knew Dad was closing in.
Then something happened two days later.
Dad died.
I felt the old temptation.
Murder.
Conspiracy.
A dramatic answer.
I refused it.
Dad had documented heart disease.
No evidence connected Grant to his death.
We would not invent a crime because the timing felt sinister.
That decision mattered.
Because while Grant expected us to chase Dad’s death, Marcus found something provable instead.
May you like
Grant had accessed Dad’s governance archive six hours after the funeral.
📖 Grant couldn’t be blamed for my father’s natural death, but what he stole after the funeral could finally prove why he spent years keeping Caleb framed. 👇
