Chapter 12 - Vanessa’s Real Deal
Mara traced Vale Family Holdings through three years of filings.
Gloria Vale had formed it two weeks after Emily’s forged mortgage closed.
The company paid $310,000 for Parcel 6.
The money came from Vesper Consulting.
Vesper received money from the Ashwood loan.
Emily stared at the flowchart.
“My mortgage bought Vanessa’s mother land beside mine.”
“Yes.”
“And that land becomes valuable only if Westbridge gets Ashwood.”
“Yes.”
“How valuable?”
Ben answered.
“Potentially several million.”
Emily leaned back.
Vanessa had not been Daniel’s assistant in the scheme.
She had been his partner.
Maybe more.
Detective Kim and a financial crimes investigator interviewed Emily for four hours.
Seth Palmer turned over his video and bank deposit records.
Lena agreed to provide a sworn statement.
The sheriff referred the case to the county prosecutor and state financial investigators.
For the first time, Daniel and Vanessa faced consequences outside Emily’s control.
Then Daniel came to Ashwood alone.
He looked different.
No suit.
No polished confidence.
He stood at the edge of the porch in jeans and a gray sweater.
“Five minutes.”
Emily remained behind the screen door.
“Say it from there.”
“I didn’t know about Parcel 6.”
She believed him.
That surprised her.
“Vanessa did.”
“Yes.”
Daniel looked toward the dog run.
“I thought Gloria bought it with family money.”
“You wired the family money.”
“I didn’t know she used those funds.”
Emily laughed.
“You stole my money and you’re offended she stole some of yours?”
Daniel flinched.
“I came to warn you.”
“About Vanessa?”
“She’s talking to Westbridge without me.”
“Why should I care?”
“Because she has copies of everything.”
“Good.”
“No.”
Daniel stepped closer.
“If she gives Westbridge the loan documents and DCP agreements, they’ll claim I acted alone.”
“Didn’t you?”
His face hardened.
“You want me to say I forged your signature.”
“I already know.”
“I didn’t sign it.”
“Vanessa did.”
Daniel’s silence confirmed it.
Emily gripped the doorframe.
“You watched her.”
He looked away.
“You watched another woman sign your wife’s name.”
“I was trying to secure a deal.”
“A deal?”
“An exit.”
“From what?”
Daniel finally looked at her.
“From being Robert Weller’s employee.”
Emily stared.
“He never employed you.”
“You don’t understand what it was like.”
“Try me.”
“Every dinner. Every holiday. Every conversation. Your father treated me like the banker who married above himself.”
“That’s a lie.”
“He reminded me the farm was yours. The house was yours. The land would be Sophie’s. Everything important in our marriage had Weller attached to it.”
Emily felt disgust.
“So you wanted something with Carter on it.”
“Yes.”
At least he finally said it.
“I wanted one thing no one handed me.”
“You could have built it honestly.”
“I tried.”
“No. You wanted it faster.”
Daniel laughed without humor.
“Maybe.”
Emily opened the door.
“Why Vanessa?”
His expression shifted.
“She understood ambition.”
“She understood fraud.”
“So did I.”
That admission hung between them.
Daniel lowered his voice.
“I loved you once.”
Emily felt nothing.
“That doesn’t make any of this smaller.”
“I know.”
“Did Vanessa love you?”
He looked toward the road.
“I don’t know anymore.”
Emily almost pitied him.
Then she remembered Sophie in the ditch.
“Why did she scare Sophie?”
“I told her Robert kept evidence near the dog run.”
“You told her to search?”
“I told her to look.”
“And when Sophie found the key?”
“I told Vanessa to get the box.”
“From an eight-year-old?”
“I didn’t tell her to hurt Sophie.”
Emily’s hands trembled.
“But you created the reason she was there.”
Daniel nodded once.
It was the first honest thing he had given her.
“Will you say that under oath?”
He looked at her.
“No.”
The old Daniel returned.
Emily smiled sadly.
“Then this conversation means nothing.”
“I’m offering you a deal.”
“Of course you are.”
“Sell Ashwood voluntarily. Westbridge will raise the price to four million. Heartland gets paid. You keep the rest. I disappear from the company arrangements.”
“And Vanessa?”
“Her problem.”
“Sophie?”
“We return to normal custody.”
Emily stared at him.
“You still think this is about money.”
“It is about money.”
“No.”
She stepped onto the porch.
“It became something else the second Sophie hit that ditch.”
Daniel’s expression hardened.
“You refuse, and everybody loses.”
“I’ve already lost enough.”
He walked away.
At the end of the drive, his phone rang.
Emily couldn’t hear the caller.
She saw Daniel stop.
Then shout.
His voice carried across the yard.
“You sold what?”
He looked back at Emily.
Pure panic crossed his face.
Minutes later Mara called.
Westbridge had assigned its acquisition option to another company.
Vale Industrial Partners.
Vanessa’s company.
Vanessa had just cut Daniel out of the deal he had committed crimes to create.
May you like
And now the woman who had attacked Sophie controlled the company trying to take Ashwood Farm.
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