Chapter 6 - DANIEL VALE
Daniel Vale lived in Florida.
He owned a boat dealership now.
Not the life of a man hiding from the world.
Rachel called his attorney first.
Within a day, Daniel agreed to speak.
That surprised me.
His first words surprised me more.
“My sister married you?”
He genuinely sounded shocked.
“You didn’t know?”
“Corinne and I haven’t spoken in six years.”
Rachel and I exchanged a look.
“Why?”
“Because she tried to put Northcrest on me.”
There it was.
His version.
Daniel admitted creating the LLC.
He admitted receiving the company payments.
He claimed Corinne designed the arrangement.
According to him, Laura’s consultancy needed to move certain expenses quickly before the sale.
Corinne suggested Northcrest as an intermediary.
At first, Daniel believed it was legitimate.
Then invoices became inflated.
He asked questions.
Corinne told him to shut up and process them.
“Did you keep the money?”
“Some fees.”
“How much?”
“Maybe sixty grand.”
“And the rest?”
“Moved where Corinne told me.”
“Where?”
Daniel’s answer changed everything.
“A brokerage account.”
Whose?
He gave Rachel the institution.
Historic records required subpoenas.
But Daniel had retained one tax document.
Beneficial owner:
Corinne Vale.
Not Daniel.
Corinne had lied in my living room.
She did have a financial interest.
Daniel also described the proposed settlement with Laura.
“My sister wanted immunity and money.”
“Did Laura refuse?”
“Yes.”
“What happened after?”
“Corinne lost it.”
“How?”
“She said Laura would destroy her career. Said if Laura filed anything, nobody would ever trust her with financial operations again.”
Daniel claimed he withdrew from the situation.
Moved states.
Cut contact.
Convenient.
Rachel pressed.
“Did you repay anything?”
“Two hundred thousand.”
“To whom?”
“Laura.”
We found the transfer later.
True.
“Why only two hundred?”
“Because that’s what I still controlled.”
So roughly $280,000 remained missing.
Possibly with Corinne.
Another reward.
The financial picture sharpened.
Then Daniel gave us the larger complication.
Three weeks before Laura died, Corinne called him.
First contact in years.
“She asked if I still had the old Northcrest records.”
“What did you say?”
“I said yes.”
“What did she want?”
“For me to destroy them.”
My jaw tightened.
“Did you?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t trust my sister.”
For once, paranoia had preserved something useful.
Daniel still had an old laptop.
Rachel arranged forensic imaging.
While that moved forward, Corinne counterattacked.
She filed for temporary access to the mansion, claiming marital rights to certain personal property and alleging I had “isolated” her without fair process.
Her lawyer also sent a letter demanding I stop “coaching” Maisie to repeat accusations.
That one enraged me.
Rachel stopped me from responding personally.
“She wants you angry in writing.”
“She’s accusing me of using my child.”
“Yes. So don’t give her material.”
Instead, we responded with Dr. Hart’s documentation and offered supervised retrieval of any clearly personal belongings.
Procedure beat rage.
That evening, Maisie sat on the living-room floor beside her bicycle, tapping the stuffed rabbit against the wheel.
Then she looked toward the hallway.
“Cab’net.”
I froze.
“You want the cabinet?”
She shook her head.
“Mommy.”
Laura.
My chest tightened.
I opened the cabinet while Maisie watched from my arms.
Inside, one shelf remained empty where I had removed the legal stack.
Maisie pointed lower.
Not at the documents.
At the cabinet floor.
I crouched.
There was a shallow scratch along the back panel.
A hidden compartment.
May you like
Laura had left us another layer.
📖 Daniel’s records shifted the missing-money trail toward Corinne herself, while Maisie unexpectedly pointed me toward a second compartment Laura had hidden inside the cabinet. 👇
