Chapter 6 - THE WOMAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH
Vanessa requested a meeting two days later. She arrived at the mansion without her usual entourage. Her face looked tired, and the diamonds she normally wore were absent.
Luca received her in the library. Marco stood by the door.
“Are you recording this?” she asked.
“Yes.”
Vanessa gave a bitter laugh. “Of course you are.”
“Why did you put something on my dinner?”
“I didn't know what it would do.”
“That's not an answer.”
She sat down. “My father said it would make you sick. He said you would be taken to the hospital and too unwell to attend the board meeting.”
“What board meeting?”
“The one scheduled for Monday.”
Luca's eyes narrowed. The proposed arrangement would have given a temporary proxy to a group of trustees if he became medically unable to manage the company. It had been drafted months earlier, but he had never approved the final version.
“Who prepared the document?”
“My father. Peter Lang. And a lawyer named Arthur Bell.”
“Why did you agree?”
Vanessa's eyes filled. “My father told me you would never marry me unless I helped him secure the proxy. He said he had invested too much in our engagement to let you walk away.”
“So you tried to make me ill.”
“I thought it would be temporary.”
“You put an unidentified substance on my food.”
“I know.”
“Did you know it could kill me?”
She did not answer.
Luca stood and walked to the fireplace. “Who else knew?”
“Peter. My father. Arthur. I don't know who else.”
“Did you threaten Emma?”
Vanessa shook her head. “I called her desperate. I told her I'd have her fired. I didn't send that note.”
Luca studied her. He could not treat her denial as proof, but he could test it.
He pressed a button on the desk. Marco entered.
“Give the recording to the investigators,” Luca said. “Vanessa will remain available to answer their questions. She is not to be threatened or harmed.”
May you like
Vanessa looked up. “Are you ending the engagement?”
“There is no engagement anymore.”
