Chapter 7 - MY LATE WIFE’S BRACELET
The bracelet was not sentimental because it was expensive.
It was expensive.
But that was not why my hands shook.
Sofia had chosen it for Elena from three options I showed her online when she was two.
She pointed at the blue stones.
“Mommy color.”
Elena wore it constantly afterward.
When she died, I put the bracelet away because seeing it hurt.
Apparently grief made a convenient storage system for thieves.
Evan Bennett’s attorney called within hours of Rachel contacting him.
He wanted to cooperate.
That surprised me.
The bracelet had been consigned to a luxury resale dealer.
Not sold yet.
We recovered it.
So were several smaller items.
Evan claimed Chloe told him the jewelry belonged to her.
“She said Alexander gave her permission to clear out things connected to his first wife.”
I almost walked out of the room.
Rachel stopped me with one look.
Facts.
Stay with facts.
“Did you believe her?”
Evan looked ashamed.
“At first.”
“At first?”
“Then I knew some of it felt wrong.”
“But you kept taking boxes.”
“Yes.”
He had also benefited from Briar Rose’s inflated invoices.
Not every dollar.
Enough.
Then:
“Why?”
He stared at the floor.
“Chloe said she was building a life in a house that still belonged to a dead woman.”
My anger went cold.
The house did not belong to Elena.
But my daughters’ memories of her did.
Chloe apparently hated both.
Evan continued.
“She said if she was going to become Mrs. Vance, the house couldn’t keep looking like a shrine.”
It did not.
There were photographs.
Some jewelry.
Books.
The stuffed rabbit.
Normal remnants of a mother.
But Chloe experienced every one as competition.
Then Evan told us about the private storage unit.
Boxes from my house.
Artwork.
Clothing.
Elena’s keepsakes.
Children’s drawings.
Even a framed family photograph from before Elena got sick.
Chloe had been removing the past piece by piece.
The girls noticed.
I didn’t.
We recovered everything we could identify.
Then Hector found something inside the storage unit that did not belong to my family.
A folder.
CHLOE — PERSONAL.
Inside were bank statements.
Briar Rose profit distributions.
A condominium purchase agreement in West Hollywood.
Price:
$1.4 million.
Buyer:
Chloe Bennett.
Deposit:
$280,000.
I had never heard about a condo.
The down payment came partly from Briar Rose distributions.
May you like
Money derived substantially from invoices paid by my family office.
The woman preparing to marry me had secretly bought herself another home while using my money to erase my daughters’ mother from ours.
