Chapter 8 - The Woman Who Came Back for Howard's Ledger
Lena didn't get far.
Not because anyone chased her.
Because a Montana snowstorm had closed the private road leading away from the lodge.
Twenty minutes later, Conrad found her sitting inside a parked SUV near the equipment barn.
The ledger was on the passenger seat.
When she walked into the lodge, she looked nothing like the glamorous woman I remembered.
She was forty-one now.
Her dark hair was shorter.
Her face looked exhausted.
She stared at me before anyone else.
"I'm sorry."
I folded my arms.
"You said that once before."
"I should've said more."
Conrad placed the ledger on the table.
"Start now."
Lena sat.
Then she told us the last part of Howard's scheme.
She had never been Conrad's mistress.
Howard had offered her $75,000 to create circumstances that looked suspicious.
Dinners.
Late meetings.
Photographs.
Hotel lobbies.
Nothing physical had happened.
But Lena had accepted the money because her younger brother needed an expensive medical procedure.
"I told myself I wasn't destroying a marriage," she said.
"I told myself if your marriage was strong, photographs wouldn't matter."
I looked at her.
"That's how people excuse cruelty. They divide it into smaller pieces."
She nodded.
"I know."
After Conrad left me, Howard ordered Lena to destroy all records connecting him to the staged photographs.
She kept copies.
"Insurance."
Conrad laughed bitterly.
"Against my father?"
"Everyone who worked for Howard needed insurance."
But the bigger secret came later.
Lena had been the anonymous sender.
She sent Conrad the Christmas email.
Felicity stared at her.
"Why?"
"Because Howard is dead."
"That doesn't explain it."
Lena looked at me.
"I was afraid if I contacted Cecily directly, she'd ignore me again."
She wasn't wrong.
"So you manipulated us into the same room?"
"Yes."
I nearly lost my temper.
"You thought putting me in front of the man who abandoned me at Christmas was a good idea?"
"No."
Her eyes filled with tears.
"I thought it was the only way to make Conrad open that desk."
Margaret frowned.
"How did you know about the drawer?"
"I watched Howard put papers in it."
"Why steal the ledger?"
"Because there's one page you haven't seen."
She opened it.
A section near the back had been glued together.
Lena carefully separated the pages.
There was a list of payments.
One name appeared repeatedly.
Warren Pike.
I recognized it.
Conrad didn't.
"Who is that?" he asked.
"My divorce attorney."
The man I had hired eight years earlier.
The man who told me repeatedly that Conrad refused communication.
The man who advised me not to waste money fighting for support from someone determined to disappear.
I felt physically sick.
Howard had paid my attorney.
Conrad stared at the amounts.
"What did he pay him to do?"
Lena answered.
"Make sure Cecily never discovered the family trusts."
I sat down.
For eight years, I had believed I had protected my children alone because I had no other option.
I built my consulting company from a rented bedroom.
Took calls while rocking premature babies.
Worked during naps.
Skipped vacations.
Bought secondhand furniture.
Never requested a dollar from Conrad because my attorney told me pursuing him would create years of litigation.
All while four trust accounts had existed.
And the lawyer I trusted had known.
Lena pushed another document toward me.
It was a copy of a confidential settlement draft.
Howard had planned to offer me $2 million.
Not out of kindness.
In exchange, I would agree never to identify Conrad as the children's father.
I stared at the unsigned contract.
"I never saw this."
"I know."
"Why wasn't I offered it?"
"Because Warren told Howard you wouldn't take it."
That almost made me proud.
Then Lena added:
"So Howard chose another solution."
My stomach tightened.
"What solution?"
She pointed to a handwritten entry dated seven years earlier.
MONITOR UNTIL RELOCATION COMPLETE.
I looked at her.
"Relocation?"
Lena's voice dropped.
"Howard wasn't just trying to keep the children away from Conrad."
"He wanted you gone from Arizona entirely."
I remembered the apartment rejection.
The strange call to my employer.
The sudden cancellation of my childcare subsidy application.
One difficulty after another until I eventually left Phoenix for Denver.
I had thought I was rebuilding my life.
Howard had been pushing me out.
But Lena's final revelation was worse.
"Your move to Denver wasn't the end of it."
I stared at her.
"What are you saying?"
She swallowed.
"Howard continued receiving reports on your children every year."
Then she opened a folder.
Inside were school photographs.
Noah at five.
Ava at six.
Miles holding a science-fair ribbon.
Sophie missing her front teeth.
Photographs I had never sent anyone in the Ashby family.
Conrad stared at them.
May you like
His voice broke.
"My father watched them grow up."
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