Chapter 8 - WHAT ETHAN SAW
Ethan waited until we were inside the car before speaking.
"Uncle Nathan gave her that bag."
Nathan turned white when I confronted him an hour later.
We were at my house with Detective Reed present.
Ethan sat beside me.
"Tell him," I said.
Ethan described a night three months earlier.
He had come downstairs for water and seen Nathan in the living room with Vanessa.
The burgundy document case sat between them.
"They were whispering," Ethan said. "Then Uncle Nathan said, 'If Arthur sees this, we're both finished.'"
Nathan closed his eyes.
I felt something inside me crack.
"What was in the bag?"
He looked at Ethan.
"Buddy, can I talk to your dad alone?"
"No," I said. "You lied around him long enough."
Nathan swallowed.
"The original Vantage files."
"Why did Vanessa have them?"
"Because I gave them to her."
"Why?"
His answer came out barely above a whisper.
"She was blackmailing me."
The second major payoff landed without drama.
Nathan had discovered the Vantage invoices six months after Olivia died.
By then he was terrified I would believe he had embezzled the money because his authorization appeared on every payment.
Vanessa approached him with copies.
She claimed Olivia had manufactured evidence to frame him.
Nathan believed her.
Partly because he wanted to.
"What did Vanessa want?"
"Access."
"To what?"
"Company systems. Your schedule. Estate documents."
My stomach turned.
"You gave her my credentials?"
"No. Never."
"Then how did she get AC-01?"
"I don't know."
Reed interrupted.
"What was the blackmail?"
Nathan looked ashamed.
"Years ago I hid investment losses from Arthur. About six hundred thousand dollars."
I stared at him.
"You used company money?"
"No. My own. But I falsified a disclosure to the board because I was embarrassed."
Vanessa threatened to expose it and make the Vantage theft look like Nathan's scheme.
So he cooperated.
Not because he was innocent.
Because he was weak.
"What did Olivia mean when she wrote that you didn't understand?"
Nathan's eyes filled.
"She tried to tell me Vanessa was using my signature trail. I thought Olivia was paranoid."
I looked away.
He had failed my wife.
Then he had failed me.
But his betrayal had edges now.
It wasn't the central conspiracy.
It was the opening Vanessa had exploited.
Reed asked him to turn over everything.
Nathan agreed.
Then he remembered one detail.
Vanessa had demanded the burgundy case specifically because a hidden compartment inside held a handwritten password card Olivia had used.
"For the flash drive?" I asked.
Nathan nodded.
I still had that flash drive.
And suddenly Vanessa's desperation made sense.
She didn't need the key anymore.
May you like
She needed the password Olivia had hidden in the bag she was carrying.
📖 We reached Olivia's encrypted files first, but the recording inside didn't accuse Vanessa of murder—it revealed the person who had taught her how to steal from me. 👇
