Chapter 3 - THE DEAD ACCOUNTANT
Chaos swallowed the pavilion.
Guests screamed.
Security rushed toward the service hallway.
Daniel grabbed my arm.
“Peter Sloan is alive?”
“Yes.”
“You knew?”
“I suspected.”
“You suspected a dead man was alive?”
“Daniel, later.”
Vanessa suddenly stepped off the stage.
I moved between her and the exit.
She glared at me.
“Get out of my way.”
“No.”
“You can’t hold me here.”
Chief Reed answered from behind me.
“She doesn’t have to.”
Two detectives approached.
Vanessa’s lawyer, Steven Carr, immediately appeared beside her.
“No questioning without counsel.”
Chief Reed nodded.
“Fine.”
Carr looked relieved.
Then Reed added, “Nobody leaves this property until we finish securing the scene.”
Carr’s jaw tightened.
Across the room, guests were being directed away from the exits.
Phones were everywhere.
Vanessa’s carefully planned humiliation had become the most recorded crime scene in the city.
Daniel stared at the giant screen.
“Elena, tell me what’s happening.”
I looked at him.
Three months of threats.
Six weeks of forged documents.
Two attempts to enter our home.
And one anonymous message sent yesterday morning.
WE KNOW WHAT REALLY HAPPENED THE NIGHT REED WAS SHOT.
I had hidden too much from my husband.
I knew that.
But secrecy had once kept people alive.
Old habits were hard to bury.
“Vanessa’s foundation has been moving money through fake charities,” I said.
“How much?”
“At least forty-two million.”
Daniel stopped breathing for a second.
“Our money?”
“Some of it.”
His expression changed.
“Vale Holdings?”
“Yes.”
He looked toward Vanessa.
She was speaking furiously to her attorney.
Daniel stepped toward her.
I caught his wrist.
“Don’t.”
“She stole from my company.”
“We don’t know who else is involved.”
“She’s involved.”
“Yes.”
“That’s enough.”
“No, it isn’t.”
His eyes snapped toward mine.
There it was.
The problem that had been growing between us for months.
He wanted answers.
I kept giving him locked doors.
Then Detective Mason rushed back from the service hallway.
“Sloan got into a vehicle.”
Chief Reed cursed.
“What vehicle?”
“Black Escalade. Plates were switched.”
“Track it.”
“We are.”
Mason looked at me.
“But he dropped this.”
He handed me a phone.
Cheap.
Disposable.
The screen was cracked.
There was only one message visible.
A photograph.
I opened it.
My stomach tightened.
The picture showed Daniel leaving our house that morning.
A red circle had been drawn around his head.
Beneath it were six words.
ELENA TALKS, THE HUSBAND DIES.
Daniel read it over my shoulder.
His anger disappeared.
“Elena…”
Then the beach club lights went out.
A second later, a gunshot cracked through the darkness.
May you like
And Daniel fell against me.
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