Chapter 9 - The Lie About Anna
Daniel almost believed Margaret for three minutes.
That was what frightened him.
Not because evidence supported her.
Because grief made accusations against the dead impossible to test emotionally.
Rebecca demanded records.
Margaret provided them through counsel.
Payments totaling $780,000 had moved from Reeves Development to a consulting firm called Arden Analysis LLC.
Owner:
Anna Reeves.
Daniel stared.
“She had a company?”
Rebecca checked.
“Formed before your marriage.”
Anna had worked as a forensic accountant before Lily was born.
Daniel knew she had freelanced.
He had never known the firm name.
The payments occurred over four years.
Margaret claimed Anna had been secretly siphoning corporate funds while accusing others of fraud.
Robert Kane initially refused comment.
Then Rebecca confronted him with invoices.
“They were authorized.”
“For what?”
“Internal forensic reviews.”
“By whom?”
“Richard.”
Daniel frowned.
“Dad hired Anna?”
“Yes.”
“Secretly?”
“Yes.”
Margaret’s accusation collapsed.
But not completely.
The invoices had deliberately vague descriptions.
If revealed without context, Anna could look corrupt.
Rebecca found emails.
Richard to Anna:
Keep this outside standard audit channels. Margaret must not know yet.
Daniel stared.
His father had recruited Anna to investigate Margaret.
That explained why Richard later made Anna trust protector.
It also explained Margaret’s resentment.
Anna had not merely married Daniel.
Richard had eventually trusted her with the truth he would not give his own daughter.
Daniel found another email.
Anna to Richard:
You cannot ask me to repair a system you still benefit from. If you want Margaret to stop, disclose your own role.
Richard replied:
I will. Give me time.
He died four months later.
He never disclosed publicly.
Anna inherited the unfinished fight.
Daniel closed the laptop.
“My father kept giving women impossible jobs while he protected himself.”
Rebecca looked at him.
“That sounds accurate.”
Margaret requested a meeting.
Daniel agreed only with lawyers present.
She entered Rebecca’s office carrying no files.
“You called Anna a thief.”
“I said money went to her company.”
“You knew why.”
“Yes.”
“Then you lied.”
“Yes.”
Daniel stared.
Margaret’s willingness to admit lies was becoming more unsettling than denial.
“Why?”
“Because you needed to understand Anna was not just your wife.”
“What does that mean?”
“She investigated us for years.”
“She was trying to protect the trusts.”
“She was trying to dismantle the way your father built the company.”
“Because it was fraudulent.”
Margaret laughed bitterly.
“And four hundred employees would have loved that explanation when payroll failed.”
Daniel leaned forward.
“Did you steal from Lily?”
“Yes.”
The room went silent.
Even Rebecca paused.
Margaret continued.
“I transferred property below market value.”
“For the company?”
“At first.”
“And later?”
Margaret looked away.
“For myself.”
“How much?”
“I don’t know exactly.”
“Wrong.”
“Eight million. Maybe nine.”
Daniel felt sick.
“And Robert?”
“He took fees and interests.”
“Father?”
“More than either of us.”
“You intimidated Lily because Anna documented this.”
Margaret’s voice shook.
“I was afraid Lily knew where the complete ledger was.”
“So you terrorized a child.”
“I shouted.”
“You threw her into a trash bin.”
Margaret’s face crumpled.
“Yes.”
“Why that day?”
“She had something.”
Daniel froze.
“What?”
“A folded piece of green paper.”
“What was on it?”
“I never saw.”
“Where is it?”
“She dropped it.”
“In the bin?”
Margaret nodded.
Daniel stood.
The trash bin.
Not just humiliation.
Evidence.
“What happened after I arrived?”
“You pulled her out.”
“And the paper?”
“I don’t know.”
Helen’s video.
Daniel called her immediately.
They replayed the original recording frame by frame.
Margaret lifted Lily.
Lily’s hand opened.
A small folded green paper fell.
It landed among the leaves inside the trash bin.
Daniel’s heart pounded.
After Daniel rescued Lily, no one removed the bin.
Police had later placed the garden area under temporary preservation because of the child-abuse report.
The bin still sat behind the shed.
Rebecca called investigators.
They searched it under documented conditions.
Beneath the cardboard, they found the paper.
Folded four times.
Anna’s handwriting.
Only one sentence:
THE ORIGINAL LEDGER IS NOT IN THE HOUSE. ASK WHO PAID FOR RICHARD’S PRIVATE STORAGE.
On the back was an account number.
Rebecca searched Reeves Development records.
The payments went to a private archival company in New Jersey.
Authorized by:
Robert Kane.
And the storage unit remained active.
Someone had paid the annual fee three weeks ago.
Margaret stared at the statement.
“I didn’t.”
Daniel looked at her.
“Then who did?”
Robert Kane had claimed he destroyed Anna’s report.
May you like
But apparently he had kept Richard’s original records somewhere else.
And someone was still protecting them.
