Chapter 5 - THE WOMAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH
Vanessa Reed called me the next morning.
I almost didn't answer.
Curiosity won.
"Emma?"
Her voice sounded nothing like the confident woman I'd imagined.
She sounded scared.
"What do you want?"
"I need to tell you something about Arthur."
"I already know enough."
"No. You don't."
Behind her I heard a door shut.
Then a lock click.
"I didn't meet Arthur by accident."
I stood very still.
Vanessa told me Victoria had hired her company two years earlier to provide consulting services for Vance Holdings.
Victoria introduced her to Arthur deliberately.
At first, it had been professional.
Then Victoria began inviting Vanessa to private dinners.
Giving her information about Arthur's schedule.
Talking about how unhappy he was.
How his marriage had "run its course."
"I should've walked away," Vanessa said.
"But you didn't."
"No."
At least she didn't insult me by lying.
"Did Victoria tell you to sleep with my husband?"
Another pause.
"Not directly."
"That isn't an answer."
"She said Arthur needed a woman who understood what his future required."
My hand went cold.
The affair had not merely been tolerated.
It had been cultivated.
"Why are you telling me this now?"
Vanessa started crying.
"Because yesterday at the fertility clinic, I heard Victoria talking to a lawyer."
"About what?"
"My baby."
I said nothing.
Vanessa continued.
"She wasn't talking about being a grandmother."
Her voice cracked.
"She was talking about trusteeship."
Apparently Victoria believed Arthur's new child could be placed into a redesigned Vance family trust.
A trust that required Arthur to remarry Vanessa before the birth.
A trust funded partly through assets connected to R.C. Holdings.
My father's stolen money.
"I confronted Arthur."
"And?"
"He genuinely didn't know."
I almost laughed at the irony.
Arthur had spent years assuming he understood his family because understanding them would have required admitting how often he chose not to look.
Vanessa lowered her voice.
"There's more."
Of course there was.
"Victoria asked me to sign a medical authorization before yesterday's appointment."
"Why?"
"She said it was routine paperwork."
"And it wasn't?"
"I finally read it last night."
Vanessa took a trembling breath.
"It gives a private foundation access to my baby's genetic records."
My skin prickled.
"What foundation?"
She answered with two words.
"Carter Legacy."
My father's name again.
Then Vanessa said the part that made me sit down.
"Emma... the foundation was created three years after your father died."
May you like
Someone had built an entire financial structure around a dead man's identity.
And Victoria Vance was standing at the center of it.
