Chapter 6 - CATHERINE’S LETTER
I opened the envelope with Adrian beside me.
My hands shook.
Elena,
If you are reading this, I was right to trust you.
Do not believe anything they tell you about my daughter.
Do not believe anything they tell you about me.
And if Victoria starts telling Adrian you are unstable, leave before she finishes the sentence.
I looked at Adrian.
He closed his eyes.
Catherine continued.
Our family has hidden more than Lily.
The Ashbourne fortune depends on a trust clause almost nobody knows exists.
Victoria believes she is protecting the estate.
She is actually protecting a crime.
At the bottom of the letter was one name.
Nathaniel Ashbourne.
Adrian frowned.
“That was my uncle.”
“What happened to him?”
“He died before I was born.”
“How?”
“Car accident.”
Catherine’s letter said Nathaniel had not died accidentally.
He had discovered that their grandfather’s charitable trust required forty percent of family wealth to transfer outside the family if any beneficiary used violence, coercion, or unlawful confinement to secure inheritance rights.
Nathaniel tried to expose forged records.
He died three days later.
The clause remained.
Buried.
Unenforced.
Victoria had spent decades hiding evidence that could trigger it.
If Catherine proved Lily had been unlawfully confined for financial reasons, the trust could lose billions.
Not to Catherine.
To the public charitable foundation.
Adrian stared at the letter.
“So this was about money.”
“No.”
I said.
“It was about control.”
Money was simply the measurement.
Why hide Lily?
Because Catherine had discovered trust fraud involving her daughter’s future interest.
If Lily remained legally alive and Catherine retained guardianship, Catherine could challenge Victoria’s management.
So Victoria created a dead child.
Then a mentally unstable mother.
And when I started asking questions, she created A-17.
Adrian stood.
“I’m ending this.”
Detective Vale said.
“Not alone.”
That mattered.
Adrian had spent his life solving family problems privately.
Now privacy was the problem.
He nodded.
Then officers recovered another recording from the chapel safe.
Victoria.
Dr. Rowe.
A third voice.
Male.
Victoria said.
“Elena is more difficult than Catherine.”
Rowe answered.
“Then use Adrian.”
The third man said.
“He’ll sign if you tell him she threatened the family.”
Adrian froze.
He recognized the voice.
His father.
Edmund Ashbourne.
Adrian had believed Edmund died two years earlier from cancer.
Vale looked at him.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
May you like
I felt the room tilt.
Another dead Ashbourne might not be dead.
