Chapter 11 - THE PROTECTION AGREEMENT
Daniel wouldn't send the agreement to me. He was afraid Mom would cut him off and Vanessa would make him the villain.
“You helped make this possible,” I told him. “You're already part of it.”
He hung up.
At lunch, Vanessa walked into my dental practice carrying flowers. She smiled for the patients in the waiting room, then followed me toward the staff hallway.
“Can we talk like sisters?” she asked.
“Without a camera?”
She looked genuinely stung. “You think I'm a monster.”
“I think you destroyed my dress and used money that belongs to me.”
Tears gathered in her eyes. “Mom told me it was an advance. She said Rose wanted both of us to have opportunities. I believed her.”
“Then why did you copy my signature?”
Vanessa looked at the exit sign. “I didn't copy anything.”
“The business account received $286,400.”
Her face went gray.
“You don't understand,” she whispered. “Blue Aster has debts. Equipment, lease payments, payroll. If the bank calls the loan, I lose the studio.”
“Then sell what you bought with my money.”
“Mom says you want to take everything from us.”
I took a long breath. “I want an accounting and a truthful answer.”
She stepped closer. “If you love this family, please don't make the police part of it.”
I'd heard that sentence before every apology she'd never made.
“Leave,” I said.
She placed the flowers on the counter and walked out with her shoulders rigid. When I returned to my desk, an unknown number had sent a photograph.
It showed Vanessa's signature under a typed promise: I accept sole responsibility for any unauthorized transfers from the Evelyn Bennett Trust.
A second line required her to keep Helen Bennett's involvement confidential.
May you like
Under the photograph was a message.
Your mother wrote this. Ask what she promised Vanessa in exchange.
