Chapter 12 - THE MAN AT MY WEDDING
Thomas Hale had smiled in my wedding photographs.
I found him standing behind Diane in three pictures.
Back then, I knew him only as “an old family friend.”
Apparently, old family friends were useful when you needed lending rules bent.
Thomas denied taking a bribe.
He claimed the $30,000 was repayment of an old personal loan.
Maybe it was.
Maybe it wasn’t.
I did not speculate.
Priya let the records speak.
By then, enough people were asking questions that Diane’s confidence began disappearing.
She finally asked to meet me.
I agreed.
Public restaurant.
No family members.
No Mark.
She arrived wearing pearls and carrying the same designer handbag she had brought to crab dinner.
For a moment, I almost laughed at how normal she looked.
She sat down.
“You’ve made your point.”
“I wasn’t making a point.”
“You’ve frozen everyone out.”
“No. I stopped writing checks.”
“Same thing.”
That sentence explained our entire relationship.
To Diane, my role in the family had been financial.
If I stopped paying, I stopped participating.
She leaned forward.
“Tell me what you want.”
“The truth.”
“You have the truth.”
“No, Diane. I have documents.”
Her mouth tightened.
“What do you want me to say?”
“Why me?”
She looked away.
“Because you could afford it.”
It was brutally simple.
Not hatred.
Not jealousy.
Convenience.
“You made more than Mark.”
“Yes.”
“You didn’t have children.”
“No.”
“You saved aggressively.”
“Yes.”
“So we thought—”
“We?”
She stopped.
“Who is we?”
Diane did not answer.
I already knew Mark and Daniel were involved.
Vanessa knew pieces.
But Diane’s expression suggested someone else.
“Who started this?”
Her eyes filled with tears.
“You’ll destroy him.”
“Who?”
She whispered:
“Mark’s father.”
I froze.
Mark’s father, Richard Reynolds, had supposedly died eight years before I met Mark.
Diane looked at my face.
“He isn’t dead.”
For several seconds, I thought I had misunderstood her.
“What?”
“He left.”
“Mark believes his father died.”
“I know.”
My stomach turned.
“Why would you tell your children he was dead?”
“Because what he did was worse than dying.”
Then Diane reached into her bag and handed me a photograph.
May you like
Richard Reynolds was alive.
And according to the date stamped on the back, Mark had met him secretly only six months earlier.
