Chapter 7 - THE ACCUSATION AGAINST MARGARET
Daniel refused to believe Lydia’s statement.
Emily did not know what to believe.
Margaret had recognized her immediately.
She knew the meaning of the locket.
She also possessed Sarah’s hidden letters.
It was possible she had known Emily’s identity longer than she admitted.
Lydia was taken to a protected hospital room.
Detective Ruiz questioned her after doctors stabilized her.
Daniel, Emily and Margaret watched through a one-way window.
Lydia described the night of the party.
Vanessa ordered her to retrieve Eleanor’s necklace from Margaret’s safe.
Lydia refused.
Vanessa threatened to expose her for leaking private emails to the press.
Lydia eventually opened the safe using a code Vanessa provided.
The necklace was already missing.
Vanessa panicked.
Then Margaret entered the room carrying it.
Daniel looked toward his mother.
Margaret shook her head.
“I do not remember that.”
Lydia continued.
Margaret handed Vanessa the necklace and said Emily needed to be removed from the mansion before midnight.
Vanessa interpreted the instruction as permission to frame her.
Margaret allegedly promised to prevent police involvement.
Margaret left before the necklace was placed in Emily’s bag.
Detective Ruiz entered the viewing room.
“Mrs. Hawthorne, we need to speak privately.”
Margaret did not resist.
She insisted she had no memory of entering the safe room.
Medical testing found the same memory-altering medication once used after her car crash in her bloodstream.
Someone had been drugging her again.
The mansion’s private physician prescribed new sleep medication two weeks earlier.
The physician worked for a Vale-owned medical group.
Margaret may have entered the safe room while confused and highly suggestible.
Vanessa used her condition.
Lydia admitted hearing Malcolm tell Vanessa that Margaret would do whatever she was instructed to do after taking the pills.
The accusation against Margaret became evidence against the Vales.
Yet Lydia had more to confess.
She had copied Vanessa’s private messages for years.
She kept them inside a cloud account.
The messages revealed Vanessa knew Emily’s identity before arranging her employment.
She found Sarah Reed’s name while reviewing old legal payments.
Vanessa hired Emily because she wanted to watch her.
Once Emily entered the mansion wearing a housekeeping uniform, Vanessa believed no one would take a future inheritance claim seriously.
The necklace frame was supposed to accomplish three things.
It would give Emily a criminal record.
It would allow Vanessa to recover Adrian’s hidden evidence.
And it would publicly establish Emily as a dishonest employee before the family relationship became known.
Daniel asked Lydia who killed Daniel Pierce.
Lydia looked confused.
No one in the Hawthorne case was named Daniel Pierce.
Detective Ruiz corrected him.
“Thomas Bell was arrested at the bank.”
Daniel realized the stress had tangled this case with another family scandal he had recently read about.
He shook his head and refocused.
“Who ordered the attack on Adrian’s plane?”
Lydia removed a small key from beneath her hospital pillow.
She had hidden it inside her shoe during the kidnapping.
“It opens Vanessa’s private file cabinet.”
The cabinet was located inside the Vale family townhouse.
Police obtained a warrant.
Inside were photographs of Adrian’s damaged aircraft, insurance payments and correspondence between Malcolm and a mechanic.
The mechanic had sabotaged the fuel system.
He received five million dollars through an offshore company.
The file also contained a recent photograph of the same mechanic.
He was standing beside Emily’s hotel.
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Malcolm had not merely tried to kidnap her.
He had brought Adrian’s killer back to finish the family line.
