Chapter 20 - Diane’s Second Secret
Diane closed her eyes when shown the motel image.
“I knew this would come out.”
“Where is Mia?”
“I don’t know now.”
“Now?”
That word mattered.
Diane admitted helping Mia leave New York.
Mia no longer trusted Roman, Jonathan, Gabriel, or me enough to disclose her destination.
She trusted Diane only because Diane had turned against Victor.
Why?
Victor ordered Diane to destroy Northstar records.
Then threatened her son when she refused.
Fear finally outweighed money.
Diane arranged transportation.
Cash.
A prepaid phone.
Fake reservation under another name.
“Where?”
“Vermont first.”
Mia stayed at a farmhouse belonging to Diane’s cousin for six days.
Alive.
Harper remained in New York because Mia believed moving a child while being watched would expose them both.
She planned to return with law enforcement once she organized the evidence.
Then something changed.
“What?”
“She got a call.”
“From whom?”
“Samuel.”
Samuel again.
He told Mia Victor had located the farmhouse.
Samuel denied that.
Diane produced the phone log.
A call from a number Samuel used.
But Samuel’s phone had been seized by his attorney that day.
Someone spoofed him.
Mia fled before dawn.
Diane never saw her again.
Her last message:
GOING WHERE ADRIAN STARTED FIXING IT.
That led us back into Adrian’s timeline.
Where did he start trying to repair the scheme?
Not the chapel.
Not Gabriel.
Not the mausoleum.
Mia’s blue notebook contained an entry:
A.V. MET FED CONTACT — KINGSTON.
Luca found archived calendar data.
Adrian met a former federal investigator named Thomas Keene at a diner in Kingston six weeks before his death.
Keene had since retired.
We contacted him.
He remembered Adrian.
“He wanted to confess.”
“To what?”
“Financial misconduct connected to the foundation.”
“Did he?”
“Not fully.”
Adrian wanted protection for Mia and Harper before handing over everything.
Keene refused to promise anything he lacked authority to give.
Adrian left.
Mia contacted Keene months later.
That was where she went after fleeing Vermont.
“She gave me records,” Keene said.
“Where is she?”
He hesitated.
Then:
“I helped her enter a formal process.”
My pulse climbed.
“What process?”
Keene explained carefully.
Mia had approached authorities with evidence and requested protective arrangements while investigators assessed threats.
She had not simply vanished.
She was cooperating.
Alive.
At least when Keene last personally saw her.
Eight months ago.
That was the biggest payoff yet.
Mia survived.
Her disappearance had eventually become deliberate protection.
But Keene could not disclose her current location.
Then he told me why nobody contacted me.
“Mia specifically asked that Dominic Vale not be informed until Victor Hale was neutralized.”
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She still didn’t completely trust me.
📖 Learning Mia had survived should have brought relief, but her decision to hide Harper’s own uncle from the truth meant she believed someone could still reach her through me. 👇
