Chapter 7 - Natalie Talks
Natalie contacted me before I contacted her.
Her message contained five words.
I didn’t know he’d hit her.
I stared at the screen.
Not:
I didn’t know about the phone.
Not:
I’m sorry.
She had chosen her words carefully.
Julia arranged the meeting.
Natalie arrived without her wedding ring.
She looked exhausted.
“My attorney told me not to come.”
“Then why are you here?”
“Because Preston is blaming me.”
I almost laughed.
“You helped him.”
“I helped with the phone.”
My hands tightened.
“Why?”
“He told me it was a prank.”
“Against an eight-year-old?”
“He said Sophie would be accused for thirty seconds.”
“Then he would announce he found the phone somewhere else.”
I stared at her.
“You believed that?”
Natalie looked down.
“I wanted to.”
There it was.
The phrase cowards use when the truth was available but inconvenient.
“Why the $75,000?”
Her eyes snapped up.
“You know about that?”
“Yes.”
“It wasn’t payment for Sophie.”
“What was it?”
“A wedding gift.”
“From a shell company?”
She said nothing.
Julia leaned forward.
“Natalie, if you want us to believe you were manipulated, now would be an excellent time to stop lying.”
Natalie began crying.
The money had covered private debts.
Preston discovered she owed nearly $110,000 from failed business ventures and luxury spending.
He offered to erase most of it.
In exchange, she stopped asking questions about North Harbor.
Then came the wedding.
Preston told her he needed Evelyn “embarrassed” before Monday’s trust vote.
He explained the phone plan.
Natalie agreed.
She claimed she never knew about the oak board.
I believed that part.
Not because she deserved trust.
Because the footage showed genuine shock after Preston raised it.
She moved her train because she thought he was storming past.
When he swung, Natalie stepped backward.
Then she did something worse.
She said nothing.
She watched Sophie bleed.
She protected the wedding.
Natalie opened her handbag.
“I have messages.”
Preston had texted her two days before the ceremony.
Need Evelyn unstable before Monday.
Another.
Kid is easiest pressure point.
I stopped breathing.
Kid.
My daughter had been reduced to a pressure point.
Another message.
Phone in jacket. Public embarrassment. Mom handles aftermath.
Mom.
I looked at Natalie.
“My mother knew?”
“She knew something was planned.”
“How much?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did my father?”
Natalie hesitated.
“I heard Preston say your dad wanted the trust issue solved before the audit.”
My parents had spent days insisting the wedding incident was spontaneous.
It was not.
Preston planned it.
Natalie helped.
My mother knew.
My father needed the result.
Then Natalie handed Julia her phone.
“One more thing.”
“What?”
“Preston keeps a second phone.”
“Where?”
“He took it after police released him.”
“What’s on it?”
Natalie looked at me.
May you like
“Everything he doesn’t want your father to see.”
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