Chapter 9 - OLIVIA'S SECRET
The safe-deposit box contained no money.
It contained evidence.
Maya sat inside a private conference room while Grant, Julian, and Naomi examined folders Catherine had hidden twenty-five years earlier.
Bank statements.
Photographs.
Copies of shipping manifests.
Letters.
A cassette tape.
And a handwritten journal.
Catherine’s first entry explained why she left.
Adrian Vale had been using several Vale Global subsidiaries to move undeclared cash through international shipping contracts.
When Catherine discovered the transfers, she confronted him.
He threatened her.
Then someone tampered with the brakes of her car.
Catherine went to the police.
A detective she trusted warned her that details from her report had somehow reached Adrian within hours.
She panicked.
So she created a plan.
She would take Maya away temporarily.
She would gather proof.
Then she would contact Grant through an attorney once she knew whom she could trust.
But something happened after she left.
The final journal entry ended abruptly.
If Grant ever sees this, tell him I did not leave because I stopped loving him.
Tell him I left because Adrian said he would bury our daughter where Grant would never find her.
Maya stopped reading.
Grant walked to the window.
His shoulders shook once.
Only once.
Then he straightened.
“There’s more.”
Julian held up an old employment record.
A young woman had worked as administrative assistant to Adrian during the year Catherine disappeared.
Olivia Mercer.
Before she married Peter Vance.
Before she became Olivia Vance.
Maya stared at the photograph.
Richard’s mother.
“No.”
Grant looked back.
“She worked for Adrian?”
Julian nodded.
“And she resigned nine days after Catherine disappeared.”
Maya remembered the satisfied smile on Olivia’s face at the birthday party.
It’s about time someone put that girl in her place.
Suddenly the cruelty felt older.
Deeper.
Naomi tapped another document.
“Olivia received a ninety-thousand-dollar payment two weeks after she resigned.”
“In today’s money, that would be significant.”
“Who paid it?”
Julian answered.
“One of Adrian’s shell companies.”
Maya stood.
“She knew.”
“We don’t know how much.”
“She knew who my mother was.”
Grant’s jaw tightened.
Maya felt sick.
For six years, Olivia had criticized her clothes.
Her education.
Her job.
Her parenting.
Her lack of family.
You came from nothing, Olivia once told her at Thanksgiving.
Now Maya wondered whether Olivia had known exactly where she came from.
Her phone rang.
Richard.
Maya almost ignored it.
Then she answered.
“What?”
Richard sounded breathless.
“You need to stop digging.”
Every person in the room looked at Maya.
She put the call on speaker.
“What did you say?”
“You’re stirring up things you don’t understand.”
Maya looked directly at Olivia’s employment photograph.
“How does your mother know Adrian Vale?”
Richard went silent.
That silence answered everything.
Maya’s voice became steady.
“Richard.”
“What did your mother do?”
The call disconnected.
Grant stepped toward Maya.
She held up one hand.
“No.”
She didn’t need comfort.
She needed the truth.
May you like
And now she knew exactly where to look.
—
