Chapter 8 - MY MOTHER'S SAFE

My mother had been dead for seven years, but her study in the old Vale house had never been touched.

Charles had insisted preserving it was “respectful.”

Now I understood another possibility.

Preserved rooms preserve evidence.

Rachel obtained access through the estate. Behind a painting in the study was a wall safe none of us knew existed.

Inside were letters, a flash drive, and a small tape recorder.

The first letter was addressed to me.

Emma,

If Thomas is gone and I am not there to explain, then Charles has already moved before I was ready.

My hands shook.

The letter said my parents discovered money disappearing from the family company through shell vendors. Charles, then general counsel, had controlled the contracts. My father wanted police. My mother wanted time to trace the network.

Then the charter plane crashed.

Thomas survived, badly injured.

Charles told Marianne that if Thomas resurfaced, Emma would become the next target.

So my mother agreed to hide him.

“She helped fake his death,” I whispered.

Rachel kept reading.

For two years, Marianne moved money and evidence quietly while pretending Charles still had her trust.

Then she died from what everyone called an aneurysm.

The final page contained one sentence underlined twice.

IF I DIE BEFORE EMMA TURNS TWENTY-NINE, DO NOT LET CHARLES CONTROL THE BIRTHDAY VOTE.

I looked up.

Rachel’s face had gone pale.

“What birthday vote?”

She grabbed the trust agreement.

At twenty-nine, my shares didn’t simply vest.

They triggered the right to replace the company’s permanent trustee.

Charles.

Friday wasn’t about taking my money.

It was about stopping me from removing him.

Then we played the tape recorder.

My mother’s voice filled the room.

“If you’re hearing this, Charles probably thinks he won.”

A second voice answered in the recording.

A woman’s voice.

My mother said, “Evelyn, if anything happens to me, get Thomas out.”

Evelyn March had been helping my mother.

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Not Charles.

Which meant someone else had written that message on the photograph.