Chapter 5: The Voice Vanessa Could Not Erase
I held up the empty folder.
“You erased eight months of evidence.”
Vanessa smiled.
“Maybe there was never anything there.”
Mr.
Hale answered immediately.
“I made an encrypted copy yesterday.”
Her smile slipped.
“You had no permission,” she said.
“Claire gave me permission.
It was her folder.”
Vanessa gripped the banister.
“Recordings made without consent cannot be used.”
“That depends on where they were made,” Mr.
Hale replied.
“Most came from company meetings.”
My mother stepped in front of Vanessa.
“Look at me.”
“I don’t have time for this.”
“You used me to hurt your sister.”
“You spent thirty years choosing her.”
My mother flinched.
“I spent thirty years excusing you.”
Vanessa’s eyes filled, but her voice remained hard.
“Because you knew what she took from me.”
“What did I take?” I asked.
“Dad’s respect.
Mom’s trust.
Daniel.
Every room you entered.”
“Daniel was never yours.”
“He could have been.”
Daniel moved beside me.
“No, Vanessa.
I could not.”
She pulled out her phone.
“Careful.
I still have messages that can destroy your company.”
“From Marcus?” he asked.
“From people more important than Marcus.”
I held out my hand.
“Give Mr.
Hale the document and the phone.”
Vanessa laughed.
“Or what?”
“Or you walk downstairs in front of every guest while I play the bridal-suite recording.”
“You would humiliate Mom at your own wedding?”
My mother moved beside me.
Her hand was trembling, but her voice was not.
“Play it.”
Vanessa stared at her.
“You don’t mean that.”
“I watched you ruin Claire’s dress and told myself you were jealous.
I watched you lie and told myself you were hurting.
Every excuse I made became another tool in your hand.”
“Mom, don’t do this.”
“You did it.”
My mother turned to me, and tears slid down her face.
“I kept asking you to be the bigger person because you were the safer daughter to disappoint.”
My throat closed.
She took both my hands.
“I made you pay for her behavior because I was afraid she would leave me.”
“And now?” I asked.
“Now I’m afraid I’ve lost you.”
My knees gave way, and she caught me before I reached the floor.
I pressed my face against her shoulder as she held me.
“I needed you to defend me,” I whispered.
“I know,” she said.
“I should have done it years ago.”
Evelyn knelt beside us and placed the ivory gown across my lap.
“My sister ruined something precious to me once,” she said.
“Everyone called it a misunderstanding.
It took me twenty years to stop calling my silence kindness.”
I wiped my face.
“Why are you helping me?”
“Because no woman should begin her marriage wearing somebody else’s shame.”
Vanessa reached for the garment case.
Lena stepped between them.
“Don’t.”
“Get out of my way.”
“No.”
The downstairs doors opened again.
A man announced himself as a bank investigator, and another voice asked for Daniel.
Vanessa raised her chin.
“They came for Claire.”
Mr.
Hale spoke through the phone.
“Let them upstairs.
Say nothing until I arrive.”
Vanessa began typing.
“What are you sending?” Daniel demanded.
“The truth.”
I heard several phones chime in the ballroom below.
Then my aunt called up the stairs.
“Claire?
Someone just sent every guest a bank statement with your name on it.”
May you like
Vanessa slipped her phone into her purse.
By the time the bank investigator reached the landing, half my wedding guests believed I had stolen Daniel’s money.
