Chapter 5 - The Woman I Thought Was the Villain
Dad stepped in front of me.
Beatrice did not move.
She looked older than she had at my wedding.
Not physically.
Defeated.
Her immaculate cream suit was wrinkled from the drive. Her hair had come loose near one temple.
“Get out,” Dad said.
Beatrice looked at him.
“You still hate me.”
“I don’t know you well enough to hate you.”
“That’s not true, David.”
Hearing my father’s first name from her mouth unsettled me.
I held up my phone.
“I heard you last night.”
Her eyes moved to me.
“What?”
“The bridal suite.”
Understanding hit her.
Then fear.
“You were in that room?”
“Under the bed.”
For one second, Beatrice almost smiled from disbelief.
Then the expression disappeared.
“So you heard Julian.”
“I heard both of you.”
She shut her eyes.
“That changes things.”
“It changes my marriage.”
“Yes.”
Her answer came too quickly.
No defense.
No excuse.
That confused me more than denial would have.
“You called me easy to manage.”
“I did.”
“You said Julian should establish control.”
“Yes.”
“You helped him plan to take my property.”
Beatrice looked at the framed photograph in my hand.
“No.”
I laughed bitterly.
“I have the recording.”
“You heard what I said. You did not hear what I meant.”
“That’s convenient.”
Dad cut in.
“Why are you here?”
Beatrice reached slowly into her purse.
Dad tensed.
She pulled out a package of cigarettes.
Then seemed to reconsider and put them back.
“Because Julian called me at five this morning in a panic. He said Clara had found Thomas’s photograph.”
“You knew he had it?”
“No.”
Something passed through her face.
Real anger.
“I thought that photograph was destroyed.”
“Why?”
“Because everything Thomas kept from those years brought trouble.”
I stepped closer.
“Did you know my mother?”
Beatrice stared at me.
“Yes.”
One word.
“Did you threaten her?”
“No.”
“Did she believe you would?”
“Yes.”
The honesty stopped me.
Beatrice walked to a dusty chair but did not sit.
“In 1998, I was ambitious, arrogant, and very good at making excuses for people with money.”
She looked at Dad.
“You remember that much.”
“I remember enough.”
“I wasn’t stealing from Aerodyne.”
“Then who was?”
“My brother.”
Dad’s expression changed.
I had never heard of Beatrice having a brother.
“Martin Vale,” she said. “He owned Harbor Crest.”
The name meant nothing to me.
Dad reacted immediately.
“Vale was your brother?”
“Half brother.”
She nodded.
“I kept the relationship quiet because he had contracts with companies connected to Aerodyne.”
A conflict of interest.
A serious one.
Beatrice continued.
“Martin was moving money through real estate. Thomas discovered it.”
“And you protected Martin,” Dad said.
“At first.”
Her voice dropped.
“He was my brother.”
That was the first thing about Beatrice’s motives that sounded human.
Not admirable.
Human.
“I kept telling myself he was manipulating invoices, not hurting anyone. Then Thomas showed me what the scheme could do to innocent employees if it collapsed.”
She looked at me.
“Your mother had already found the same trail.”
“So you warned her?”
“I frightened her.”
Beatrice swallowed.
“I went to Elaine’s office and told her she had a child. I said she should think carefully before making accusations against powerful people.”
My skin crawled.
“That’s a threat.”
“Yes.”
Beatrice did not look away.
“I have regretted it for twenty-eight years.”
Dad’s voice was cold.
“Regret is inexpensive.”
“I know.”
“What happened to Thomas?” I asked.
Beatrice flinched.
“He wanted to expose Martin.”
“And then he died.”
“A heart attack.”
“You believe that?”
“I didn’t for years.”
She pressed her fingers together.
“But Thomas had a congenital heart condition. I saw the medical file. There was nothing suspicious about his death.”
An answer.
One mystery closed.
Another opened.
“Then why did Harbor Crest disappear?”
“Because I made it disappear.”
She looked toward the photograph.
“After Thomas died, I destroyed Martin financially. Quietly. I threatened to turn over everything I knew unless he closed the companies and disappeared.”
“You had evidence?”
“Some.”
“Where is it?”
“Gone.”
I almost laughed.
“Of course.”
“No.”
Her voice sharpened.
“Thomas had the real evidence. Elaine had copies. I had fragments.”
“What happened to Martin?”
“Died six years ago.”
Dad’s shoulders relaxed slightly.
But Beatrice continued.
“That is what I believed until three months ago.”
Silence filled the room.
I thought of Harbor Crest calling Julian’s phone.
“Martin is alive?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then what happened three months ago?”
Beatrice opened her purse again.
This time she removed an envelope.
Inside was a photocopy of an old ledger page.
Several property numbers were circled.
One was the parcel beside our condo.
At the bottom was a handwritten note.
RETURN WHAT THOMAS STOLE.
No signature.
“I received this after Julian announced your engagement.”
I stared at her.
“You knew someone was targeting us.”
“I knew someone had connected you to your mother.”
“And instead of telling me, you helped Julian marry me?”
Beatrice looked sick.
“I told Julian enough to make him afraid. Not enough to make him understand.”
“Why?”
“Because Julian was already in trouble.”
Dad spoke quietly.
“What kind?”
Beatrice looked at me.
“Debt.”
I almost rolled my eyes.
That seemed painfully ordinary compared with everything else.
Then she told me the amount.
“Two million dollars.”
My mouth went dry.
“How?”
“His business.”
Julian had told me his investment firm was thriving.
Apparently, it had been failing for almost a year.
“Someone offered to clear the debt,” Beatrice said, “if Julian helped gain access to certain property connected to your family.”
My stomach twisted.
“The Savannah condo.”
“Yes.”
“So you knew.”
“I knew someone wanted the adjacent parcel. I did not know why.”
“You still went along with it.”
Her eyes filled.
“Yes.”
Not because she was innocent.
Because she had made a choice.
A terrible one.
“I thought I could control it,” she whispered. “I thought if I stayed close, I could keep Julian from doing anything irreversible.”
“You sat above me last night and coached him through stealing from me.”
“I was keeping him talking.”
I stared at her.
“The speakerphone.”
She nodded.
“I suspected he wasn’t telling me everything. When he said he had forged documents—”
“He didn’t say forged.”
“No. But I knew.”
Her jaw tightened.
“And I realized whoever was behind this had already taken him further than I understood.”
I wanted to hate her completely.
It would have been easier.
But villains who admitted their guilt without begging for forgiveness were harder to fit neatly into boxes.
Dad asked, “Who paid Julian?”
Beatrice looked at the brass key in my hand.
“I don’t know.”
Then headlights swept across the storage-room wall.
A vehicle pulled into the courtyard.
Julian’s black SUV.
Beatrice went pale.
“He followed me.”
The driver’s door opened.
Julian stepped out.
He wasn’t alone.
A gray-haired man emerged from the passenger side.
Dad gripped the workbench so hard his knuckles whitened.
I had never seen the man before.
But Beatrice had.
She whispered one name.
May you like
“Martin.”
The dead brother she had buried six years ago walked toward us smiling.
