Chapter 11 - THE MISTRESS WHO STARTED BEFORE THE MARRIAGE ENDED
Cassidy confessed after Parker’s arrest.
Not immediately.
First she lied.
Then Naomi showed her the records.
Cassidy stared at the old phone number for a long time.
Finally, she said:
“My mother worked for Charles Ashford.”
Gideon went still.
“What was her name?”
“Diana Vaughn.”
He knew it.
I saw that immediately.
Diana had been Charles Ashford’s executive assistant.
She died four years earlier from cancer.
Before her death, she apparently told Cassidy that Charles had concealed illegal development of the biometric storage system.
Diana feared prosecution.
She contacted Parker.
Not Cassidy.
Cassidy had used her mother’s phone once to send the message:
Yes. Both. No witnesses.
“You were what, twenty-four?” I asked.
“Twenty-three.”
“And you casually approved murder?”
Her face twisted.
“I thought Parker was being dramatic.”
“‘No witnesses’ seems fairly specific.”
“I was angry.”
“At me?”
“At Preston.”
That made no sense.
Cassidy swallowed.
“He was supposed to marry me.”
The room fell silent.
I stared.
“What?”
Preston had known Cassidy before me.
Years before.
They dated secretly in college.
Preston ended it when he met me.
Cassidy never forgave him.
Then Parker contacted her after Preston’s company began working with Ashford.
Identical face.
Different man.
Same obsession.
She became involved with Parker first.
She fed him information from her mother.
Then the fire happened.
“I didn’t know he would actually do it,” Cassidy whispered.
“My scars say he did.”
She started crying.
I felt nothing.
Five years later, Cassidy entered Preston’s professional life under the pretense that they had merely attended the same university.
She became his communications director.
Then his mistress.
Part revenge.
Part manipulation.
Part genuine feeling, according to her.
Human beings were apparently capable of making ugliness unnecessarily complicated.
“And the baby?” I asked.
She closed her eyes.
“Parker’s.”
Preston had already requested DNA confirmation.
The result eventually proved it.
Parker was the father.
Cassidy had manipulated Preston into believing the baby was his because Parker wanted access to Preston’s equity package through her.
She had intended to marry whichever brother ended up controlling the money.
For the first time, I almost felt sorry for Preston.
Almost.
Then Cassidy said something unexpected.
“There’s another account.”
Gideon leaned forward.
“What account?”
“My mother kept records Charles didn’t know about.”
She gave us the password.
The archive contained decades of Ashford transactions.
Some were legitimate.
Others were not.
And one file concerned me.
Not Preston.
Not Parker.
Me.
VIVIAN REED - RECRUITMENT TARGET.
Reed was my maiden name.
The document was dated eight years earlier.
Three years before the fire.
I stared at Gideon.
“What does recruitment target mean?”
He looked genuinely confused.
“I don’t know.”
The file listed my university.
My first employer.
My financial records.
My relationship with Preston.
Someone at Ashford had been monitoring me before my husband’s company ever entered Gideon’s world.
Then we found the reason.
My late father’s name.
Dr. Samuel Reed.
Gideon whispered:
“Your father worked on the original biometric project.”
I stared at him.
“My father was a chemistry professor.”
“No.”
He opened an attached document.
May you like
“Your father invented the storage material.”
The technology Parker tried to steal had belonged, in part, to my family all along.
