Chapter 5 - THE SEVENTEENTH CALL
Audrey had called Derek seventeen times while she was in labor.
She remembered every one now.
Calls one through four came from the car.
Five through nine came while a nurse helped her breathe through contractions.
Ten happened after the anesthesiologist asked whether her husband was coming.
Eleven through fourteen happened when Maisie’s heart rate briefly dropped and Audrey became terrified.
Fifteen happened when Audrey was told they might need an emergency C-section.
Sixteen happened while she was crying.
Seventeen happened forty-three minutes before Maisie was born.
Derek ignored all of them.
Audrey had spent five days believing that cruelty was the explanation.
Now she wondered whether absence had been part of the plan.
Nathan contacted the hospital’s legal department.
Within an hour, they provided a digital audit trail.
The alleged power of attorney had been uploaded from an IP address registered to Lorraine Halston’s home.
The witness signature belonged to someone named Patricia Keller.
Audrey searched the name.
Dr. Patricia Keller.
Licensed psychiatrist.
Same surname as the man on Sienna’s recording.
Nathan found the connection first.
“Patricia Keller is married to Raymond Keller.”
“The man on the recording?”
“Possibly.”
Nathan kept reading.
“Raymond isn’t a doctor.”
Sienna frowned.
“Lorraine called him doctor.”
“He has a doctorate in behavioral psychology, but he isn’t a physician.”
Audrey felt sick.
“What does he do?”
Nathan looked at her.
“Private competency evaluations.”
The room went quiet.
There it was.
A system.
Not improvisation.
Derek and Lorraine hadn’t suddenly panicked when Audrey discovered the affair.
They had built a path toward controlling her before Maisie was born.
Sienna crossed her arms.
“Why would Derek need this much money?”
“He wouldn’t,” Audrey said.
“What?”
“Derek likes money. He likes status. But sixty million dollars?”
Audrey shook her head.
“He wouldn’t know what to do with it.”
Nathan understood.
“You think Lorraine is driving this.”
“Lorraine doesn’t understand holding companies either.”
“Then who?”
Nobody answered.
Sienna suddenly remembered something.
“There was another man.”
Audrey looked at her.
“When?”
“About two months ago. Derek met someone at the Jefferson Hotel.”
“Name?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did you see him?”
“For maybe ten seconds.”
“What did he look like?”
“Late fifties. Gray hair. Expensive suit.”
That described half the men in Richmond finance.
“Anything else?”
Sienna thought.
“He had a ring.”
“What kind?”
“Gold. Black stone. Some kind of crest.”
Audrey became still.
Nathan noticed.
“You know it?”
She did.
The Vance family crest.
Her grandfather had commissioned five signet rings decades earlier.
Audrey’s father received one.
Her uncle received one.
Two went to senior trustees.
The fifth disappeared after her grandfather’s death.
Audrey had been seventeen.
Her mother always said it had been lost.
Nathan lowered his voice.
“Who could have that ring?”
“I don’t know.”
But Audrey’s mind had already gone somewhere uncomfortable.
Her uncle Charles.
Her mother’s older brother.
A man Audrey had not seen in nearly twelve years.
He left the family after accusing Audrey’s grandfather of cheating him out of control of Vance Holdings.
Charles had sued.
Lost.
Then disappeared to Europe.
Or so Audrey believed.
Her phone buzzed.
Unknown number.
One photograph.
Derek sitting in a hotel restaurant.
Across from him sat a gray-haired man.
His hand rested beside a coffee cup.
On his finger was the black Vance signet ring.
Audrey enlarged the face.
Older.
Thinner.
But unmistakable.
“Uncle Charles.”
Nathan stared.
“You’re sure?”
“Yes.”
Sienna whispered:
“That’s him.”
Audrey felt something shift beneath the entire story.
Derek wasn’t merely trying to steal from his wife.
Someone from Audrey’s own family had recruited him.
A text arrived beneath the photograph.
ASK YOUR MOTHER WHY CHARLES REALLY LEFT.
Audrey stared at it.
Her mother, Helena Vance, lived twenty minutes away.
Audrey called.
No answer.
Again.
Nothing.
On the third attempt, someone picked up.
But it wasn’t Helena.
Derek spoke.
“Audrey.”
Her entire body went rigid.
“What are you doing at my mother’s house?”
Silence.
May you like
Then Derek said:
“You need to come alone.”
