Chapter 8 - WHAT THEY PLANNED FOR FIVE O'CLOCK
Detective Bennett ordered the ballroom cleared.
Guests were moved into the lobby while officers secured Vanessa and Adrian in separate rooms. Michael took the documents and began identifying which copies were authentic.
I stayed with Nora.
She was shaking.
“Did I do something bad?” she whispered.
I crouched in front of her.
“No. You told the truth.”
“But I hurt Vanessa.”
“You didn't hurt her. The pin went into something she was wearing. The doctor will check her, but you're safe.”
Nora began crying.
“I didn't want to ruin the wedding.”
I pulled her close.
“You didn't ruin anything. The people who lied did that.”
Claire arrived and wrapped her arms around us.
Detective Bennett approached a few minutes later.
“Ethan, we need to talk about the Friday deadline.”
I looked up.
“What was supposed to happen at five?”
She showed me a message recovered from Adrian's phone.
At 5:00 p.m., a transfer request was scheduled to be submitted to a private financial institution. It would move a large portion of my life insurance policy's assigned benefits and the management rights of Nora's trust to a company controlled by Adrian.
The request included a forged authorization bearing my signature.
There was also a second message.
If the wedding went as planned, Adrian would give Vanessa a sedative disguised as a supplement. She would tell me it was something recommended for stress before the honeymoon.
After I took it, Adrian intended to stage a car accident on the road outside the estate.
The plan was to make it appear that I had lost control of my vehicle while driving home.
“Was he going to kill me?” I asked.
Detective Bennett nodded.
“The messages suggest that was the intention.”
I felt cold all over.
“And Vanessa?”
“She was supposed to remain at the estate, claim she had no knowledge of the accident, and later seek control of the trust and insurance proceeds.”
“What about Nora?”
The detective hesitated.
“Their messages discuss sending her to a private residential school outside the state. They planned to use a psychological evaluation to claim she was unstable and needed specialized care.”
I looked at Claire.
Nora had been standing close enough to hear.
Her eyes filled.
“They were going to take me away?”
I knelt beside her.
“Not anymore.”
Detective Bennett continued.
“We also found a message from Vanessa to Adrian. It says, 'I don't want the girl hurt. I just need her out of the way.'”
I looked at the detective.
“Does that make any difference?”
“It doesn't erase what they planned. But it may matter when we determine each person's role.”
Michael arrived carrying a second folder.
“Ethan, I found something else.”
He opened it.
Inside was a copy of a private guardianship agreement. It named Adrian's sister as Nora's temporary guardian if I became incapacitated.
The signature was not mine.
But the document had been prepared months earlier.
Vanessa had not simply planned to take my money.
She had planned to remove my daughter from my life.
I looked toward the room where she was being questioned.
May you like
For five months, she had kissed my cheek, read stories to Nora, and talked about the baby we were supposedly expecting.
All the while, she had been building a future that depended on my death.
