Chapter 5 - THE FIANCÉE WHO KNEW TOO MUCH
“Brielle isn't leaving this house until she explains that dispatch order.”
Nathaniel said it quietly.
But Owen immediately understood.
He positioned two security officers near the ballroom entrance while Nathaniel asked Brielle to join us in the adjoining library.
I stayed beside the fireplace.
My wedding ring felt strangely heavy.
For five years, I'd thought Daniel had died because he'd made a mistake.
Now I knew he'd warned his employers, challenged his orders, and tried to prevent the very attack that killed him.
Brielle entered carrying a champagne glass.
“Nathaniel, darling, people are beginning to notice your absence.”
“Sit down.”
She looked at the widows standing behind me.
“Is this really necessary?”
“Sit down, Brielle.”
She placed her glass on the mantel.
Nathaniel showed her Teresa's dispatch slip.
“Explain your initials.”
Brielle studied the paper.
Then she shrugged.
“I handled hundreds of messages that year.”
“Daniel Brooks called at 9:17 to warn us his route was compromised. Your initials are beside the instruction not to change it.”
“I wasn't the head of security.”
“That's not what I asked.”
Her composure began slipping.
“I passed the information to Raymond. He said Daniel was being unreasonable.”
“And you accepted that?”
“Raymond had fifteen years of experience. Daniel was a driver.”
I felt something inside me harden.
“My husband was the driver who saved Nathaniel's life.”
Brielle glanced at me.
“Evelyn, I understand you're grieving, but you weren't there.”
“No,” I said. “I was home with our three-year-old daughter, waiting for my husband to come back.”
For the first time, she had no immediate answer.
Nathaniel placed the declined-benefits letters beside the dispatch slip.
“Why did these families never receive their payments?”
Brielle folded her arms.
“The foundation's administrator determined that the claims were ineligible.”
“Who was the administrator?”
She hesitated.
“Technically, I supervised that department.”
“And who approved the declined-delivery reports?”
“Our staff handled correspondence.”
“Then give Owen the names of those staff members.”
She stared at him.
“You're treating me like a criminal.”
“I'm treating you like someone who owes four families an explanation.”
Brielle's eyes filled with tears.
“I spent years making your family respectable, Nathaniel. I built a foundation that feeds children, helps injured employees, and supports hundreds of people.”
“Then you should have no problem opening its records.”
Her tears stopped.
There was the smallest change in her face.
“Foundation finances are complicated.”
“So were the lives of the families you turned away.”
Brielle looked toward me.
“You don't understand what this organization was like five years ago. People were frightened. There were threats from competitors. The family was losing money and employees.”
“None of that explains my husband's stolen benefits,” I said.
She picked up her champagne glass.
“I won't continue this conversation without an independent review.”
Nathaniel nodded.
“Agreed.”
He instructed Owen to preserve the office records, payment authorizations, and correspondence.
Brielle could remain in the guest wing, but she would have no access to financial or security systems.
Her expression turned cold.
“You're throwing away everything we've built together.”
Nathaniel looked at her engagement ring.
“I don't know what we built anymore.”
After she left, Teresa approached me.
“There was something else Luis mentioned.”
She opened her husband's envelope again.
“He said Daniel had a blue notebook. He kept vehicle numbers and route changes in it.”
My breath caught.
“Raymond asked Madeline about that book.”
Teresa nodded.
“Luis once told me that if anybody could prove what happened that night, it would be Daniel.”
I thought about our little house.
Daniel's work jacket still hung in the hall closet.
His photographs were in a shoebox.
But I'd never seen a blue notebook.
Then I remembered the box of personal belongings returned after his funeral.
There had been a sealed inventory sheet.
Most of his possessions were marked as damaged or lost.
His watch had been listed as destroyed.
His work notebook had been listed as returned to his family.
But there had been no notebook in the box.
“Someone signed for it,” I whispered.
Nathaniel checked Daniel's old property records.
There it was.
BLUE DRIVER'S LOGBOOK — RELEASED TO E. BROOKS.
A signature appeared beside the entry.
It wasn't mine.
Another forgery.
Nathaniel leaned back.
“Raymond thinks you have the book because the records say it was delivered.”
“Then where is it?”
“We'll find out.”
He opened the foundation's financial records.
For several minutes, he worked silently.
Then his expression changed.
“Mother, come look at this.”
Margaret approached.
Nathaniel turned the screen.
The survivor payments authorized after Daniel's death had entered Brielle's foundation.
But instead of reaching the families, large portions had been transferred to a separate organization.
Harbor Renewal Trust.
Margaret frowned.
“That's a property-development organization.”
Nathaniel nodded.
“It was established through the foundation's investment program.”
He opened its transaction history.
Three weeks after Daniel died, Harbor Renewal had purchased an abandoned shipping property near the Savannah River.
Gate Four.
The exact location where Raymond wanted me to bring Daniel's missing notebook.
I looked at the purchase date.
Then at the amount.
More than two million dollars.
Nathaniel's voice was barely audible.
“Brielle used money intended for dead employees' children to buy that property.”
Owen leaned over the screen.
“Sir, look at the acquisition records.”
One transaction was marked with an earlier date.
A substantial deposit had been placed on the property before the motorcade attack.
Nathaniel stared.
“Before Daniel died?”
Owen nodded.
“Forty-eight hours before.”
May you like
And suddenly, the missing payments weren't the only mystery.
Someone had been preparing to profit from Daniel's death before it happened.
