Chapter 12 - LAKE BRIAR
Aaron agreed to meet only after I mentioned Lake Briar.
We chose a public restaurant outside Harrisburg.
Detective Brooks waited two tables away.
Aaron arrived wearing a baseball cap and carrying no bag.
He looked older than his photographs.
Mostly, he looked tired.
“You read Edward’s letter,” he said.
“Yes.”
“Then you know he wasn’t stupid.”
“I never thought he was.”
“You thought he was controlling.”
I said nothing.
Because I had.
Aaron looked toward Brooks, clearly recognizing law enforcement.
“I’m not confessing to anything.”
“No one asked you to.”
He laughed.
“Not yet.”
I placed the canceled check on the table.
“Why did Vanessa pay you?”
Aaron’s face tightened.
“Because I knew what she did before she met you.”
“What?”
He rubbed the scar near his eyebrow.
“We were married young. Bad marriage. Worse breakup.”
“Why didn’t you divorce?”
“We tried. We were broke. We missed the hearing. Then we separated and stopped caring.”
“Until she married me.”
“I didn’t even know for years.”
“When did you find out?”
“Your wedding announcement showed up online.”
“Then you blackmailed her.”
He looked ashamed.
“Yes.”
It wasn’t noble.
It was criminal.
He admitted demanding money in exchange for silence.
But then he said the demand changed after he contacted Dad.
“Edward came after me like I was poisoning you.”
“Were you?”
“With the bigamy thing? Maybe.”
“Why Lake Briar?”
Aaron stared at his hands.
“Because Vanessa asked Edward to meet her somewhere private.”
“She invited him?”
“Yes.”
“How do you know?”
“She used my rental account.”
That explained the property.
“What happened?”
“I hid a recorder.”
Brooks moved closer.
Aaron noticed and kept speaking.
“I wanted leverage. I thought Edward might pay more than Vanessa.”
“Do you still have the recording?”
“Parts.”
My heart hammered.
“What’s on it?”
“Edward asked why she married you.”
“And?”
Aaron’s eyes met mine.
“She said because you were easy to make loyal.”
The words cut deeper than I expected.
“She said your father had spent your whole life making you feel you had to earn approval. All she had to do was give you unconditional support.”
I looked away.
That was cruel because it contained enough truth to wound.
“What else?”
Aaron’s voice lowered.
“She told him she never loved me. Then Edward asked if she loved you.”
I waited.
“What did she say?”
Aaron looked genuinely sorry.
“She said love had stopped mattering a long time ago.”
Brooks asked, “Did she threaten Edward?”
“Not at Lake Briar.”
“Did he threaten her?”
“He said he was going to tell Daniel everything.”
“And her response?”
Aaron swallowed.
“She said, ‘Then I’ll lose everything.’”
That was the first clear motive.
Not just money.
Control.
Status.
The life she had built.
But Aaron wasn’t finished.
“Edward said something else before he left.”
“What?”
“He told Vanessa he had finally figured out who sent the anonymous warning before your wedding.”
I leaned forward.
“Who?”
Aaron shook his head.
“He never said the name.”
The mystery shifted again.
Someone had tried to warn Dad about Vanessa before I married her.
May you like
And whoever it was had known the truth years before Aaron began blackmailing anyone.
📖 Aaron exposed how Vanessa studied my weaknesses before marrying me, but the unknown person who warned my father suggested her deception had never been as private as she claimed. 👇
