Chapter 3 - THE WOMAN ON THE YACHT WASN’T JUST HIS MISTRESS
I expected Grant to defend Miranda.
Instead, he sounded terrified of her.
That was more interesting.
“Who is she?”
He did not answer immediately.
“My consultant.”
“Try again.”
“A consultant who became…”
He stopped.
“Your mistress?”
“Yes.”
The word hurt.
Even now.
Even with my daughter unconscious.
“Yes,” he repeated. “But that is not why she’s on the yacht.”
“Then why?”
“She has documents.”
Daniel leaned toward the phone.
“What documents?”
Grant recognized his voice.
“Daniel?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Listen carefully.”
Miranda had approached Grant eight months earlier claiming she had proof someone inside Vance Biologics was stealing from my family trusts.
My company.
My inheritance.
My father’s legacy.
Grant said he initially met her because she had evidence.
Then he began sleeping with her.
No excuse.
No clever explanation.
He simply betrayed me while investigating something he should have brought to me.
“What was being stolen?”
“Clinical-development money.”
“How much?”
“About fourteen million.”
My chest tightened.
“Who?”
“I don’t know.”
“That is what you were supposed to be investigating?”
“Yes.”
“By taking her on my yacht?”
A long silence.
“No.”
At least he did not insult me by pretending.
“Miranda said the person behind it was going to move money today.”
“Christmas?”
“Exactly. Fewer people watching.”
Daniel whispered:
“Classic timing.”
Grant continued.
“She told me she could prove it if I took her somewhere away from phones and staff.”
“And you believed her.”
“Yes.”
“And slept with her.”
“Yes.”
The disgust in his own voice surprised me.
Then I heard a second voice.
Miranda.
Closer now.
“Tell Evelyn everything.”
Grant snapped:
“Stay out of this.”
Miranda ignored him.
“Mrs. Vance, your daughter’s reaction wasn’t an accident.”
My entire body turned cold.
“Explain.”
“I found an internal email last week. Someone asked for Chloe’s allergy records.”
“What?”
Daniel began typing immediately.
“Why?”
“I don’t know. But the request came through Vance Biologics.”
My company had no reason to access my daughter’s pediatric file.
None.
Miranda continued.
“Grant was trying to find out who made the request.”
I almost laughed.
“By sleeping with you?”
“No.”
Her voice hardened.
“That was a separate betrayal.”
At least she understood vocabulary.
Then Grant said:
“Evelyn, check Chloe’s emergency medical file. Not the hospital copy. The private concierge file.”
Daniel accessed it.
The allergy list appeared.
Tree nuts.
Cashews.
Pistachios.
Then a note from six days earlier:
ALLERGY SEVERITY UPDATED — MODERATE. ORAL EXPOSURE GENERALLY NON-LIFE-THREATENING.
I stared.
“That’s false.”
The physician had never written it.
Someone had altered Chloe’s record to make a dangerous exposure look survivable.
Daniel looked up.
“Who has access?”
Four people.
Me.
Grant.
Our family doctor.
And my chief financial officer.
A man named Stephen Vale.
The same Stephen who had been pushing me to approve a $40 million insurance expansion for Chloe three weeks earlier.
Then Daniel found something worse.
A new life insurance policy had been opened on my daughter.
Beneficiary:
THE VANCE FAMILY TRUST.
May you like
Trust controller upon a minor beneficiary’s death:
GRANT VANCE.
