Chapter 9 - DANIEL TRIED TO MAKE BOTH OF US THE PROBLEM
For five seconds, Daniel said nothing.
Then:
“What is this?”
Vanessa closed the door.
I sat opposite him.
Margaret remained standing.
Daniel looked at his mother.
“You did this?”
Margaret’s expression stayed calm.
“No.”
That bothered him more.
He turned to me.
“Emily, Vanessa is manipulating you.”
Vanessa laughed.
“There he is.”
Daniel snapped:
“Stay out of this.”
She stared.
“You invited me into it two years ago.”
Silence.
Two years.
I knew the affair had lasted longer than he would admit.
“How long?”
Daniel rubbed his face.
“It wasn’t constant.”
Wrong answer.
“How long?”
“Eighteen months.”
My chest hurt.
Still, I stayed still.
Margaret had taught me well.
Daniel began talking quickly.
Our marriage had been distant.
I worked too much.
He felt invisible.
Vanessa understood him.
He never intended to hurt me.
Every cliché arrived exactly on schedule.
Then I asked:
“Why the house LLC?”
He froze.
“What?”
“The quitclaim deed.”
His attorney—apparently unaware of the deception—looked at him.
“Daniel?”
Daniel recovered.
“Asset protection.”
“Why the Lincoln Park apartment?”
“Temporary housing.”
“For whom?”
No answer.
Vanessa said:
“For me.”
Daniel glared.
Then I asked:
“Why the fake email pretending to be me?”
His face changed.
He had not expected Vanessa to show me.
“That wasn’t fake.”
I placed my phone on the table.
“Send a verification message to it.”
Silence.
Then Margaret sat.
“Daniel.”
His eyes moved toward her.
“You need to stop.”
He stared at his mother as though she had betrayed him.
That was almost insulting.
Then his attorney excused himself to review potential conflicts.
Good.
The room became family.
Messy.
Real.
Daniel finally admitted creating the fake email.
He said Vanessa would not continue the relationship if she believed I was unaware.
Vanessa’s face tightened.
“So you knew I cared about that.”
“Yes.”
“And lied anyway.”
“Yes.”
Interesting.
The mistress discovering she had also been betrayed.
Then Robert arrived.
He placed the trust documents on the table.
“What were you going to do with $1.8 million?”
Daniel looked down.
“Invest.”
“In land using information you learned through municipal consulting?”
Daniel’s head snapped up.
There.
Robert had hit it.
“Dad—”
“If that information was material and nonpublic, you have a serious problem.”
“I never used confidential information.”
“Then why this property?”
Daniel did not answer.
Robert continued.
“And why disguise the payment as a family reconciliation settlement?”
Daniel’s anger surfaced.
“Because you screwed Vanessa’s family.”
Vanessa flinched.
Robert said quietly:
“No.”
Then he placed Martin Hale’s estate records down.
Full payment.
Appraisal.
Release.
Vanessa read them.
Her face changed.
Charles had lied to her for twenty years.
Daniel had built his moral justification on that lie.
Then Robert produced one more document.
A recent email from Charles Reed.
To Daniel.
Once the trust money clears, I’ll release the municipal parcel to you at the agreed price. Vanessa never needs to know our split.
Vanessa stared at Daniel.
“You were cutting a deal with my father behind my back?”
Daniel looked trapped.
May you like
And I realized the two women he had lied to were no longer the only problem.
Charles Reed had been using his own daughter too.
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