Chapter 16 - The Person Victoria Feared
The device contained months of audio.
Most was useless.
Footsteps.
Doors.
Television noise.
Then Eleanor’s forensic team found a recurring voice.
A man.
Older.
Calm.
He visited Victoria late at night.
Never through the front door.
On one recording, Victoria said his name.
“Richard.”
Dominic knew him immediately.
Richard Vale.
His late father’s former attorney.
He had handled portions of the Sterling family estate before retiring.
I had met him twice.
He always smelled like tobacco and expensive soap.
“What was he doing with my mother?”
Dominic asked.
Eleanor ignored his possessive question.
The audio answered.
Richard had been advising Victoria about Leo’s trust.
Not legally.
Strategically.
“If Clara remains primary guardian when the first transfer occurs, you control nothing.”
Victoria answered.
“Dominic will get custody.”
“Not if Clara returns.”
“She won’t.”
Richard laughed.
“You underestimate her.”
Another recording.
Victoria sounded nervous.
“What if Leo tells her?”
Richard answered.
“Children can be characterized as unreliable.”
My blood went cold.
This had not been only Victoria improvising cruelty.
An attorney had been helping her construct a legal narrative around it.
Richard continued.
“Document instability.”
“Document aggression.”
“Create medical history.”
“By the time Clara realizes what happened, the record will already exist.”
Eleanor looked at me.
“This is conspiracy to manipulate a custody proceeding.”
The final recording was the worst.
Victoria said.
“I never wanted the boy hurt.”
Richard answered.
“You wanted twelve million dollars.”
“Do not become sentimental now.”
Dominic stared at the speaker.
“My mother wasn’t running this.”
“No.”
I looked at him.
“She was participating.”
“There’s a difference.”
Richard Vale was arrested three days later.
His office archive contained draft affidavits.
Letters for Waverly Behavioral Center.
Financial forecasts based on Leo’s trust distributions.
And a private agreement.
If Victoria gained guardianship authority, Richard would receive fifteen percent of all management fees generated from trust investments.
He had turned my son into a revenue model.
But one file had nothing to do with Leo.
It concerned Sterling Meridian.
My father.
And me.
The document was dated eleven years earlier.
Before Dominic and I married.
At the top were the words:
BELLAMY-STERLING CONTROL AGREEMENT.
I looked at Eleanor.
“What is this?”
She read the first page.
Then stopped.
“Clara.”
May you like
“What?”
“Your father knew Dominic’s family before you met him.”
