Chapter 3 - THE MAN WHO KEPT HER SECRET
“WHY IS EMILY'S FATHER IN A PHOTOGRAPH WITH MY WIFE?”
Adrian held the picture so tightly that its edges bent.
Nicholas didn't answer.
Vanessa stood near Grace's broken wall, watching Adrian with a strange mixture of fear and relief.
For three years, Olivia's death had been the one subject nobody in the Moretti family questioned.
Now every answer seemed to lead toward someone Adrian trusted.
Including the father of the young woman comforting his daughter downstairs.
“Marco,” Adrian said, “find Emily.”
Nicholas stepped forward.
“Leave the girl out of this.”
Adrian turned sharply.
“You don't get to decide who's involved anymore.”
Marco left.
Nicholas loosened his tie.
“Thomas Carter worked with Olivia before the accident.”
“As her doctor?”
“No.”
“What, then?”
“He was a rehabilitation physician at Harbor Point Medical Center. Olivia contacted him because she believed somebody was falsifying medical records.”
Adrian frowned.
“What does that have to do with our company?”
Nicholas looked exhausted.
“Moretti Maritime transported medical equipment for private rehabilitation centers. One of those centers was Harbor Point.”
“And?”
“Some of the shipments existed only on paper.”
Adrian remembered the government inquiry Nicholas had managed three years earlier.
Missing equipment.
Inflated invoices.
Contractors he had never met.
Nicholas had assured him everything had been resolved.
“How much money?” Adrian asked.
Nicholas said nothing.
“I'm asking you a question.”
“Nearly eighteen million dollars.”
Adrian stared.
That amount could destroy several subsidiaries, threaten hundreds of jobs, and reopen investigations into every account carrying the Moretti name.
“Who took it?”
Nicholas looked toward Vanessa.
She shook her head.
“Don't.”
Adrian reached for the photograph.
“Then we'll ask Dr. Carter.”
Vanessa gave a bitter laugh.
“Good luck. He can't remember what he ate yesterday.”
Adrian's expression changed.
Emily had told him her father suffered a stroke four months earlier.
His rehabilitation costs were the reason she worked long hours at the estate.
Until that moment, Adrian had assumed it was simply another family's private hardship.
Now he wondered why Vanessa had known so much about those payments.
Marco returned with Emily.
She stopped when she saw the photograph.
“Where did you get that?”
Adrian watched her carefully.
“You recognize the man?”
“That's my father.”
“Did he know Olivia?”
Emily's face drained.
She glanced at Nicholas.
Then Vanessa.
“Yes.”
Adrian waited.
Emily clasped her hands.
“My father treated Mrs. Moretti before she disappeared.”
The admission hurt more than Adrian expected.
“You knew?”
“Not at first.”
“When did you find out?”
“After I started working here.”
“And you didn't tell me?”
Emily's eyes filled.
“My father asked me not to.”
Nicholas stepped forward.
“Adrian, she had nothing to do with what happened.”
Emily looked at him.
“Please don't pretend you're protecting me.”
Something in her voice made everyone turn.
“You knew my father was frightened,” she continued. “You knew somebody had been following him. And you still sent a representative from Moretti Maritime to his hospital room.”
Nicholas stared.
“What representative?”
“The man who brought those papers for him to sign.”
“I never sent anyone.”
Vanessa looked away.
Adrian caught the movement.
“What papers?”
Emily reached into her apron pocket and removed a folded receipt.
“My father kept this inside his wallet.”
It was a payment acknowledgment from a private medical fund.
The amount was $42,000.
The signature at the bottom appeared to belong to Thomas Carter.
But beside the printed name was a small handwritten sentence.
I did not request this money.
Adrian studied it.
“Why would someone send your father forty-two thousand dollars?”
Emily swallowed.
“He said it was payment for silence.”
“About Olivia?”
She nodded.
“My father refused to take it. The money went into an account he never used.”
Vanessa interrupted.
“You don't understand what you're accusing people of.”
Emily turned.
“I understand perfectly. You threatened his therapy because I wouldn't hand over Grace's music box.”
Adrian's eyes hardened.
“Emily, you should have come to me.”
“I tried once.”
“When?”
“Last month. I asked your assistant for an appointment. The next morning, Mrs. Whitmore told me my father's rehabilitation coverage was being reviewed.”
Vanessa crossed her arms.
“I manage household expenses. It was a financial matter.”
“No,” Adrian said. “It was intimidation.”
For the first time, Vanessa had no answer.
Adrian looked toward Marco.
“Preserve the security recordings. Every one of them. And nobody enters Grace's room without my permission.”
Nicholas laughed without humor.
“You think cameras will protect everyone?”
“I think evidence will.”
“Evidence,” Nicholas repeated. “You sound just like Olivia.”
Adrian turned.
“What does that mean?”
Nicholas looked at Emily.
“Ask her what her father did with the other photograph.”
Emily went still.
Adrian waited.
“What other photograph?”
“My father kept a picture of Olivia in his hospital bag,” she admitted.
“Where is it?”
“At the rehabilitation center.”
“What's in it?”
Emily's voice dropped.
“Mrs. Moretti, standing beside an ambulance.”
“When?”
“After the boating accident.”
Adrian felt his pulse in his throat.
“Why didn't you tell me?”
“Because my father told me not to trust anybody connected to the Moretti family.”
Silence filled the room.
Even Nicholas looked wounded.
Emily continued.
“When I asked why, he said Olivia had trusted the wrong person once. He wouldn't let it happen again.”
Adrian looked at his brother.
“Was that you?”
Nicholas shook his head.
“You're asking the wrong question.”
“Then give me the right one.”
Nicholas's voice softened.
“Ask why your wife was willing to disappear without telling you where she was going.”
Adrian recoiled.
“You expect me to believe she abandoned Grace?”
“No,” Emily said suddenly.
Everyone turned.
“My father said Olivia never intended to leave her daughter.”
She looked toward the hallway, where Grace's small voice could be heard calling for her.
“He said she was trying to come back.”
Adrian closed his eyes.
A terrible possibility began forming.
Olivia had survived.
Someone had helped her.
Someone else had stopped her from returning.
And Nicholas had chosen to bury the truth.
“Marco, arrange transportation to Harbor Point. Now.”
Emily stepped forward.
“I'm coming.”
Adrian hesitated.
“My father knows me,” she said. “If he's frightened, he might not speak to strangers.”
Adrian nodded.
Then Vanessa spoke.
“You're making a terrible mistake taking her.”
Adrian turned.
“Why?”
Vanessa stared at Emily.
“Because Thomas Carter didn't have his stroke by accident.”
Emily's face went white.
“What are you talking about?”
Vanessa swallowed.
“I heard Nicholas arguing with someone about him four months ago.”
Nicholas spun toward her.
“That's a lie.”
She continued.
“They said Thomas had started remembering things. They said he couldn't be allowed to testify.”
Emily grabbed the edge of a chair.
Adrian faced his brother.
“Tell me she's wrong.”
Nicholas's expression changed.
Not anger.
Not fear.
Something worse.
Recognition.
Adrian stepped closer.
“What happened to Thomas?”
Nicholas whispered, “I tried to get him out of the city.”
“Why?”
“Because someone had already arranged for his medication to be switched.”
Emily covered her mouth.
Adrian stared at the man he had once trusted with everything.
“Who arranged it?”
Nicholas looked toward the empty hallway.
Then he said something that made Adrian's stomach drop.
“Before I tell you, check the bracelet you found in Olivia's envelope.”
Adrian removed the silver bracelet.
Nicholas pointed to the anchor charm.
“Open it.”
Adrian pressed the tiny clasp.
A narrow strip of paper slipped into his palm.
On it were four handwritten words.
TRUST THE WOMAN IN BLUE.
May you like
And beneath them:
NOT MY HUSBAND.
