Chapter 9 - THE MAN WHO KEPT ME AWAY
Alan Pierce surrendered the next morning.
He had worked for me for six years.
He knew every flight.
Every meeting.
Every hotel.
Every moment I was unreachable.
At first, Vanessa asked him for harmless favors.
Move a dinner.
Extend a conference.
Keep me focused during negotiations.
Then she paid his father’s gambling debts.
After that, the requests changed.
Delete Leo’s calls.
Create travel emergencies.
Redirect school emails.
Send messages from the mirrored account.
Alan listened to some of Leo’s voicemails.
“What did he say?” I asked.
Alan looked toward the table.
“He asked if you still loved him.”
“What did you tell him?”
“That you were busy.”
The word felt poisonous.
Busy.
A respectable word adults use when children ask why they were abandoned.
Alan provided investigators with copies of every instruction.
One message from Vanessa read:
Mark must remain out of Connecticut September twenty-fourth through twenty-ninth.
Another said:
Increase the jet-lag medication after Chicago.
We need a final set of incapacity photographs.
A third contained instructions for my death.
Not a clear order.
A discussion.
Balcony fall is too obvious.
Car accident repeats Claire’s tragedy.
Alcohol and pool may be cleaner.
I stopped reading.
“What did she mean by Claire’s tragedy?”
Alan’s face changed.
“I don’t know.”
“Do not lie to me.”
He began shaking.
“Vanessa believed Claire’s cancer medication had created an opportunity.”
“What opportunity?”
Alan asked for his attorney.
The investigation moved backward four years.
Claire’s cancer had been real.
Her treatment records were legitimate.
But in the final month of her life, someone altered her pain medication.
The dose was higher than prescribed.
Her death occurred two days earlier than doctors expected.
At the time, no one questioned it.
She was dying.
We were exhausted.
Vanessa did not know me publicly then.
But Graham Vale did.
He worked for the private trust company advising Claire.
He knew about the shares.
He knew about Leo’s inheritance.
Three months after Claire died, Vanessa appeared at an art benefit sponsored by my company.
Our meeting had not been chance.
The Vale family studied my grief.
Then sent the woman they believed I would trust.
The possibility that they accelerated Claire’s death entered the case.
May you like
It was not yet proof.
It was enough to reopen every file.
