“You also have responsibilities.”
“Vanessa says you’ve been struggling financially.”
A fierce anger rose through me.
“Yes, Daniel.
I struggled because you left us with debt.”
He was quiet.
Then he said, “I didn’t know about the trust until recently.”
I didn’t believe him.
But I wanted him to keep talking.
“When did you find out?”
“A few months ago.”
“From Vanessa?”
“Yes.”
“Did you know she was using Lily’s medical history to collect donations?”
Another pause.
“I knew she was filing some paperwork.”
“Daniel.”
“I didn’t know how far it had gone.”
I remembered the video.
The custody documents.
The way he’d discussed my daughter without a trace of concern.
“You knew enough.”
He suddenly sounded desperate.
“Claire, if you cooperate, I can make sure you get something out of this.”
For a moment, I genuinely couldn’t speak.
“You’re offering me a share of my own daughter’s money?”
“That’s not what I said.”
“Then what did you say?”
He didn’t answer.
I ended the call.
Then I sat at the kitchen table and cried.
Not because I missed him.
Not because I wanted him back.
I cried because I’d once loved that man.
I’d trusted him to hold our baby while I slept.
I’d watched him teach Lily to ride a bicycle.
I’d believed he would protect her from anything.
And now I knew he had become one of the things she needed protection from.
An hour later, I received a message from an unknown number.
Daniel is lying about when he learned of the trust.
Attached was a photograph.
It showed Daniel standing beside Vanessa outside a law office.
The date was almost two years old.
Six months before Arthur Ellison died.
Beneath the photograph was another message.
Ask him about the settlement agreement.
I immediately forwarded everything to Detective Hayes.
She called within minutes.
“Claire, don’t respond to the sender.”
“Do you know who it is?”
“Not yet.
We’re checking.”
“What settlement agreement?”
“We’ve found references to one in the estate records.”
I gripped the phone.
“What does it say?”
“We’re still obtaining the complete document.”
Then she hesitated.
“Claire, there’s something else.”
My heart tightened.
“Your ex-husband has been cooperating with an investigator in another matter.”
I frowned.
“What matter?”
“Financial crimes involving Harbor Crest Holdings.”
For a moment, I couldn’t process her words.
Daniel was part of the conspiracy.
Yet he was apparently talking to investigators.
“Since when?”
“We’re establishing that.”
“Was he trying to help?”
“Possibly.
Or trying to protect himself.”
I looked at Lily’s drawing on the refrigerator.
It showed two smiling figures holding hands beneath a yellow sun.
Mommy and Lily.
No father.
No grandmother.
No aunt.
Just us.
I had spent years feeling ashamed of how small our family had become.
Now I understood that small did not mean incomplete.
That evening, Lily asked me a question while we brushed her hair.
“Is Daddy coming back?”
I knelt beside her.
“I don’t know, sweetheart.”
“Does he love me?”
There are questions a mother cannot answer without breaking her own heart.
I chose the truth.
“I can’t tell you what Daddy feels.
But I can tell you that the way he’s behaved is not how you deserve to be treated.”
She looked at herself in the mirror.
“I thought if I showed everyone the video, maybe he’d stop being mean.”
I pulled her into my arms.
“Oh, baby.”
She started crying.
“I didn’t want him to take me.”
I held her until the tears stopped.
Then I told her something I wished someone had told me when I was eight.
“You never have to earn love by being brave enough, quiet enough, or good enough. You’re already worth loving.”
She wrapped her little arms around my neck.
“Even when I make mistakes?”
“Especially then.”
Later that night, another message arrived from the unknown sender.
This one contained only seven words.
“YOUR FATHER’S DEATH WAS NOT AN ACCIDENT.”
Chapter 9: The Witness at the Marina
Detective Hayes identified the sender two days later.
Her name was Eleanor Price.
Not related to Evelyn, despite the surname.
Eleanor had worked as a bookkeeper for Harbor Crest’s predecessor company more than twenty years earlier.
She was seventy-one now and living in a modest house outside Providence.
She had recently seen news coverage of Vanessa’s interrupted wedding.
The names brought back memories she’d spent decades trying to forget.
I met her at the police department with Evelyn present.
Eleanor was a thin woman with silver hair and careful blue eyes.
She carried a worn leather handbag against her chest.
When I entered, she stood.
“You look like your father,” she said.
My throat tightened.
“Did you know him?”
She nodded.
“Andrew was one of the few decent men in that office.”
We sat.
