Chapter 7 - THE SECOND SECRET
The message came from a prepaid phone. Daniel traced it to a public terminal near the old Hale shipping depot, but the camera footage had been overwritten. Detective Singh suspected the driver had sent it.
Richard wanted to go to the depot himself. The detective refused.
“You are a witness, not an investigator.”
“I own the property.”
“That doesn't make you police.”
Richard accepted the warning, though reluctantly. He gave the detectives the access codes and allowed them to search the depot.
Inside an unused office, they found a locked cabinet containing copies of the foundation's original trust documents. One page had been marked in red. It showed that Emily's shares could not be transferred while she was missing or presumed dead without a court order.
The document also contained a clause Richard had never seen: if Emily returned alive, any transfer made under false pretenses could be challenged and reversed.
Adrian had not simply wanted the money. He had wanted the voting control of the foundation before Emily could return.
But the documents revealed something else. The trust had been amended six months before Emily disappeared. The amendment bore Richard's signature.
He stared at the page.
“I didn't sign this.”
Detective Singh examined the signature. “We'll have it authenticated.”
Richard remembered signing a stack of documents during a business trip. Adrian had told him they were routine renewals. The signature could have been copied from another document.
Emily was shown the amendment at the recovery residence. She recognized the date.
“Adrian brought these to the guesthouse,” she said. “He wanted me to sign a confirmation.”
“Did you?”
“No. I refused. He told me Richard had already approved everything.”
Richard sat opposite her. “I didn't know.”
“I believe you.”
He looked relieved, but Emily raised a hand.
“That doesn't erase what happened. It only means we know who did it.”
Detective Singh asked whether Emily had seen any other documents.
“There was a second envelope. Adrian said it proved the foundation had been losing money because of my decisions. It was a list of donations that had never reached the hospitals.”
The detective asked where it was.
Emily closed her eyes, trying to remember. “He took it from the blue room. But I saw him put it in the glove compartment of his car.”
Police searched Adrian's vehicle under warrant. In the glove compartment, they found a sealed envelope containing donor records and a handwritten list of payments. Several charities had been used as false recipients.
The records connected Adrian to the embezzlement scheme and showed that Vanessa had received payments from the same accounts.
The driver was arrested two days later at a motel near the state border. He had the original trust documents in a suitcase. He agreed to testify after investigators showed him the evidence against him.
His statement confirmed that Adrian had planned Emily's disappearance. Vanessa had helped arrange the guesthouse and had later supervised the hidden compartment. The driver had been paid to keep Emily alive until the trust transfer was complete.
The most disturbing detail came last.
The driver said Adrian had ordered him to move Emily out of the wall after the wedding. If the wedding succeeded, Emily would have been declared dead through a legal process and the compartment would have been sealed permanently.
Richard listened to the statement in silence.
“He was going to leave her there.”
Detective Singh nodded. “That is what the evidence suggests.”
Richard turned away. For the first time since the wedding, he allowed himself to cry.
Emily reached for his hand.
“I'm here,” she said.
He held it carefully.
“I know,” he whispered.
But the investigation was not over. Adrian still claimed he had only been trying to protect the company. His lawyers argued that the foundation records were incomplete and that the driver was lying to reduce his own sentence.
The trial would determine what could be proven.
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And Richard had one more question for his brother.
Why had Adrian chosen the wedding night?
