Chapter 3 - Laura’s Room
Michael stared at the envelope for almost a minute.
Detective Ortiz photographed it before allowing him to touch it.
Inside was a two-page handwritten letter.
Michael recognized Laura’s precise, slightly slanted handwriting immediately.
He read silently.
Then his voice failed.
Ortiz asked, “Can you continue?”
He nodded.
He could not.
Maya stood behind him.
“Do you want me to read it?”
Michael handed her the paper.
Maya began.
“Michael, if you are reading this, then one of two things has happened. Either I finally convinced you that something is wrong, or something happened to me before I could.”
Sophie moved closer to her father.
Maya continued.
“I know how this sounds. I know you think I have become obsessed with the missing money. I know Grant told you I was exhausted and imagining patterns. He is lying to you.”
Michael shut his eyes.
He remembered that argument.
Laura had told him nearly nine million dollars had moved through irregular vendor contracts.
Michael had been preparing Davenport Coastal for its largest financing round.
He had accused her of trying to destroy the company with suspicions.
Grant had reassured him the transactions were ordinary development expenses.
Laura’s letter continued.
“Vanessa knows about the accounts. I have seen messages between her and Grant. I do not yet understand whether they are stealing from the company, using it for something else, or both.”
Maya paused.
Michael whispered, “Keep going.”
“If Sophie ever asks whether I left her, tell her no.”
Sophie began crying.
Michael pulled her against him.
“I would never leave our daughter willingly. Whatever happens between us, that is the one thing you must know.”
Michael could barely breathe.
The final lines were worse.
“You trust people because loyalty matters more to you than suspicion. Usually that is one of the things I love about you. Right now it may be the thing that destroys us.”
Maya lowered the letter.
No one spoke.
Ortiz examined the wall.
“Did you know Laura was investigating company accounts?”
“Yes.”
“How seriously did you take it?”
Michael looked at the floor.
“Not seriously enough.”
“Why?”
“Grant told me there was nothing there.”
“And Vanessa?”
“She said Laura was under stress.”
Maya stared at him.
“She said more than that.”
Michael looked up.
Maya hesitated.
“She told you Laura needed psychiatric help.”
Ortiz’s expression sharpened.
Michael remembered.
Vanessa had begun visiting the villa frequently that summer.
She and Laura had known each other since graduate school.
After Laura became suspicious of the company accounts, Vanessa described her as anxious, obsessive, sleep deprived.
Michael had believed her.
“I never had Laura evaluated,” he said.
“That isn’t the point,” Maya replied. “You started doubting her.”
He could not deny it.
Ortiz located the digital recorder.
The battery was dead.
She bagged it as evidence.
Next they examined documents.
One spreadsheet showed transfers totaling $8.47 million from Davenport Coastal subsidiaries to five consulting firms.
Michael recognized none of them.
A handwritten note beside one company read:
Seagrass Holdings — V.R.?
Another read:
Mercer approved all five.
A third said:
Ask Eric Sloan. He knows invoices are false.
Michael recognized that name.
Eric Sloan had been a senior accounting manager at Davenport Coastal.
“He resigned two weeks before Laura disappeared,” Michael said.
Ortiz wrote it down.
“Where is he now?”
“I don’t know.”
Maya opened a cabinet.
Inside were old family photographs and Sophie’s preschool artwork.
Nothing suspicious.
Then Sophie walked toward a narrow bookshelf.
“Mom used to hide my birthday presents behind these.”
She pushed aside several books.
A small steel box was embedded in the wall.
The brass key did not fit.
Michael found a second key taped beneath Laura’s desk.
The box opened.
Inside lay photocopies of property deeds, a USB drive, two prepaid phones, and a safe-deposit-box key tagged with the number 713.
Michael remembered Vanessa’s words.
Ask Grant.
At the bottom was a photograph.
Vanessa and Grant stood outside a hotel in Santa Barbara.
They were kissing.
The photograph was dated almost two years earlier.
Six months before Michael began dating Vanessa.
Michael stared at it.
“She was sleeping with Grant.”
Maya corrected him.
“She was sleeping with Grant before she was sleeping with you.”
Ortiz bagged the photograph.
Michael felt sick.
His relationship with Vanessa had begun nine months after Laura disappeared.
Vanessa had comforted him.
She had helped Sophie through nightmares.
She had told him Laura would want him to keep living.
Now Michael wondered how much of their relationship had ever been real.
His phone rang.
Grant Mercer.
Everyone looked at the screen.
Michael answered.
“Grant.”
“Michael, I just heard about Vanessa. What happened?”
Michael studied Laura’s wall.
“Where are you?”
“At home.”
“Were you sleeping with Vanessa while Laura was still here?”
Silence.
Then Grant exhaled.
“Michael, whatever you found, there’s context.”
Michael’s voice went cold.
“Come to the villa.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“Why?”
Another pause.
“Because Laura was not telling you everything.”
Michael looked at the memory card still secured in an evidence envelope near Ortiz.
“What was she hiding?”
Grant lowered his voice.
“She was preparing to take Sophie and leave California.”
Sophie looked up.
Michael’s heart stopped.
“That’s a lie.”
“I saw the documents.”
“What documents?”
“Custody papers. Financial records. Evidence she was moving money.”
Ortiz quietly signaled Michael to keep him talking.
“Where are those records?”
Grant said nothing.
Then he asked one question that changed the room.
“Did you find the memory card?”
Michael looked at Ortiz.
“How do you know about it?”
Grant hung up.
Ortiz immediately dialed another number.
Michael stood motionless.
May you like
Only four people in the room had known about the card.
And Grant had just revealed that he knew exactly what Vanessa had been hiding.
