Chapter 12 - DANIEL’S MOTHER
Daniel nearly ran downstairs.
I stopped him at the elevator.
“We don’t know why she’s here.”
“She’s my mother.”
“Exactly.”
Eleanor Vale had disappeared from public life after Richard’s death.
She lived quietly in Connecticut.
Avoided reporters.
Avoided company meetings.
Avoided me.
She had attended our wedding for forty minutes and spoken perhaps twelve words.
Now she sat beside Samuel Hale in the interrogation lobby.
Hale looked almost eighty.
Gray suit.
Silver hair.
Warm grandfatherly smile.
Eleanor looked terrified.
Daniel rushed toward her.
“Mom?”
She stood.
Then Hale said quietly, “Sit down, Eleanor.”
Daniel stopped.
His face changed.
“Don’t speak to her like that.”
Hale smiled.
“Richard had the same temper.”
Chief Reed approached with two officers.
“Samuel Hale, you’re under arrest.”
Hale raised one finger.
“I would wait.”
“Why?”
“Because Mrs. Vale has something to say.”
Eleanor looked at Daniel.
Tears filled her eyes.
“I’m sorry.”
Daniel’s voice softened.
“For what?”
“For not telling you.”
She opened her handbag.
Every officer tensed.
She slowly removed an old envelope.
Inside were photographs.
Richard.
Victor.
Hale.
And Vanessa’s mother, Catherine Lang.
One picture showed them standing beside a boat.
The same boat Richard supposedly died on.
Eleanor whispered, “Your father didn’t die in an accident.”
“We know.”
“No.”
She shook her head.
“You don’t.”
She looked at me.
“Richard survived the explosion.”
Daniel stopped breathing.
“What?”
“He reached shore.”
“When?”
“Two days later.”
“Where did he go?”
Eleanor cried harder.
“He came home.”
Daniel looked as if the floor had disappeared.
“You saw him?”
“Yes.”
“And then?”
Hale’s pleasant smile remained.
Eleanor stared at him.
“I made the worst decision of my life.”
Daniel whispered, “Mom.”
“Hale told me that if Richard went to the police, you would be killed.”
Daniel’s face emptied.
“So you…”
“I begged your father to surrender the evidence.”
Richard refused.
Eleanor lowered her head.
“I told Hale where he was.”
Daniel staggered backward.
His own mother had betrayed his father.
She grabbed his hand.
“I thought Hale would arrest him. I didn’t know.”
Hale finally laughed.
“You knew enough.”
Daniel lunged toward him.
I caught him.
Hale’s smile widened.
“There’s the Vale temper.”
Chief Reed ordered officers to cuff Hale.
He didn’t resist.
That bothered me.
Men like Hale didn’t walk into police headquarters to surrender.
They came because they had already moved the board.
I looked at his watch.
Then his phone sitting on the table.
The screen lit up.
A countdown.
08:42.
08:41.
08:40.
I grabbed it.
“What is this?”
Hale looked at me.
His smile disappeared.
“Richard’s son should’ve sold the beach club when he had the chance.”
Daniel stared at him.
“What?”
Hale leaned back.
“At zero, the Azure Crown disappears.”
My stomach dropped.
The party site.
Hundreds of staff.
Investigators still processing evidence.
And beneath the beach club—
Vale Holdings’ underground archive.
Chief Reed shouted for evacuation.
The timer hit eight minutes.
And then Hale said:
May you like
“The real ledger is still inside.”
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