Chapter 9 - Patricia Knew
Patricia had recognized me from the beginning.
That changed everything.
Vanessa might have believed I was a poor stranger.
Her mother did not.
Ethan stared at the enhanced video.
"She knew you were my mother?"
"Maybe. Or she knew I was connected to Carter Meridian."
Nina pulled public event photographs.
Patricia and I had been in the same room once before, seven years earlier, at a hospital fundraiser in Atlanta.
We had never spoken.
But my name had been printed on a twelve-foot sponsor wall.
Then Daniel remembered something.
Before I arrived at the party, Patricia had told security to call her personally if "an older woman with gray hair" appeared at either gate.
That was not coincidence.
We requested the estate's gate logs.
Someone had deleted them.
Fortunately, the gate company kept a cloud backup.
At 3:12 p.m., Patricia received a text from the guard:
SHE'S HERE. DRESSED PLAIN LIKE YOU SAID.
My pulse slowed.
Not anger.
Clarity.
"They expected me."
Ethan looked at me. "How would they know what you planned?"
Only four people knew I intended to come without my driver and dress plainly.
Me.
My assistant Grace.
My security director Paul.
And Martin Sloane.
Martin.
Nina said it first.
"He told them."
Then my assistant called.
"Margaret, there's been a break-in at your office."
Nothing valuable seemed missing.
No laptops.
No cash.
No artwork.
Only one file drawer had been opened.
The drawer containing my late husband's letters, my original will, and an old sealed envelope I had kept for twenty-one years.
The envelope was gone.
May you like
On it had been written one name.
ETHAN.
