Chapter 8 - THE MAN DIANE SAID WAS A THIEF
Thomas Vale was hiding in the maintenance passage behind the bathroom.
Hotel staff opened the service panel and found him sitting on the floor, bleeding from a cut above his eyebrow.
He had been attacked.
"Diane?" Mark asked.
Thomas laughed once, painfully. "Still asking the wrong question after all these years."
At the hospital, detectives questioned him while we waited nearby.
Eventually, Thomas asked to speak with Mark.
"Your mother told you I stole from your father," he said.
"She told me you destroyed him."
Thomas looked ashamed. "I helped her. At first."
Mark stood so quickly his chair scraped the floor.
"Then she was telling the truth."
"Not the part that mattered."
Thomas explained that he and Diane had begun an affair while he worked with Robert, Mark's father. Diane convinced Thomas that Robert was hiding money from her and planning to leave her penniless.
She asked Thomas to move funds into temporary accounts.
He did.
Then Diane moved the money again.
Without him.
"Why return now?" I asked.
"Because she contacted me six months ago."
Thomas pulled a folded paper from his coat.
Diane had offered him money to sign a statement claiming Robert had secretly transferred ownership of certain assets to her before he died.
"I refused," he said. "Then she threatened my daughter."
Mark's face hardened.
"So you came to Rachel's wedding?"
"She told me to bring the original records if I wanted the threats to stop. Room 814. No police."
"And someone attacked you."
Thomas nodded.
"Not Diane. A man. Tall. Black suit. Wedding staff badge."
Ben looked at Rachel. "A fake employee?"
Thomas reached for Mark's arm.
"Listen to me. The old fraud matters, but it isn't what she's protecting now."
"What is?"
Thomas swallowed.
"Your father did not die broke. He left you something worth millions."
May you like
Mark stared at him.
"And Diane has spent twenty years making sure you never find it."
