Chapter 3 - THE EMPTY COFFIN
The guests were asked to remain until investigators identified who needed formal interviews.
Adrian shouted about warrants.
Daniel Reed produced one.
That silenced him.
I sat in the library with my mother and father.
I did not know where to look.
At Eleanor.
At Robert.
At the floor.
Finally, I asked the simplest question.
“Why?”
My mother inhaled slowly.
“Fourteen years ago, I discovered money was being moved from the Bennett Foundation.”
I remembered the foundation.
My parents funded medical scholarships and community clinics.
“Who took it?”
“Your uncle Malcolm.”
My father’s older brother.
He died nine years ago.
Or so I had been told.
Eleanor continued.
“Malcolm was working with a young financial analyst.”
My stomach tightened.
“Adrian?”
“Yes.”
Adrian had been twenty-four then.
I met him seven years later.
My mother watched my face.
“He was already connected to our family long before you met him.”
I felt sick.
“Our meeting wasn’t an accident?”
“No.”
Adrian always said we first met at a museum fundraiser.
He bumped into me near the champagne table.
He recognized my last name.
I thought it was coincidence.
Apparently nothing about my marriage had begun honestly.
My father finally spoke.
“Your mother found evidence Malcolm and Adrian were laundering foundation money through shell companies.”
“What happened?”
Eleanor looked toward the dark windows.
“Malcolm realized I knew.”
My father’s voice became quieter.
“There was an explosion at the lake house.”
I remembered.
News coverage.
Fire.
Divers searching the lake.
My mother’s scarf found near the dock.
A body too damaged for identification.
My father collapsed for months afterward.
“I survived.”
Eleanor touched the scar near her jaw.
“A groundskeeper found me downstream.”
“Why didn’t you come home?”
“I tried.”
She looked at Robert.
My father covered his face.
“What?”
I demanded.
Robert whispered.
“Someone sent photographs of you.”
I went cold.
“Me?”
“You were seventeen.”
My mother continued.
“School.”
“Dance class.”
“Our driveway.”
“Malcolm told your father that if I returned, you would disappear next.”
I looked at Robert.
“So you let me think Mom was dead?”
Tears filled his eyes.
“I thought I was keeping you alive.”
“You destroyed me.”
“I know.”
“No.”
I stood.
“You don’t get to say that like it fixes anything.”
He nodded.
“It doesn’t.”
My mother did not defend him.
That helped.
I turned toward her.
“And you?”
“I disappeared.”
“For fourteen years.”
“Yes.”
“You never wrote?”
“I did.”
My father looked up sharply.
Eleanor stared at him.
“Robert?”
His face changed.
“What?”
“I sent twenty-three letters.”
I looked between them.
My father shook his head.
“I never got them.”
My mother slowly sat down.
Now all three of us understood.
Someone had intercepted every attempt she made to contact us.
There was only one person who had access to our home during most of those years.
My father’s trusted assistant.
May you like
Margaret Vale.
Adrian’s mother.
