Chapter 6 - The Woman Who Helped Them Steal Ava’s Name
“Elena.”
The woman gripped the banister.
She was older than the photographs Ava had seen.
Thinner.
Gray threaded her dark hair.
But there was no doubt in Dante’s face.
He knew her.
Dante took one step forward.
Then stopped.
Six years of grief stood between them.
Elena descended slowly.
“I can explain.”
Dante laughed once, without humor.
“You've been alive for six years.”
“I had to disappear.”
“You had a son.”
“I know.”
“You had me.”
Her eyes filled.
“I know.”
Ava turned away.
This reunion wasn't hers to witness.
But Elena looked at her.
“You’re Thomas’s daughter.”
Ava faced her.
“You knew my father.”
“Yes.”
“Did Richard kill him?”
Elena closed her eyes.
“I don't know.”
Ava’s anger surged.
“Everyone keeps saying that.”
“I know who threatened him.”
“Richard?”
“Yes.”
Elena led them into a small study.
Inside a locked metal case were documents.
Dozens.
Maybe hundreds.
She removed one folder.
E-17.
Ava stared at it.
Elena placed it on the desk.
“Your father discovered Richard had created false transportation vendors. Money was being moved out of companies before acquisitions closed.”
“How much?”
“Back then? Nearly eleven million.”
“And Dante didn't know?”
“No.”
Dante looked at Elena.
“You didn't tell me.”
“I was trying to prove it.”
“You vanished instead.”
“Because someone tampered with my car.”
Silence.
“The crash wasn't an accident?”
“No.”
Elena explained.
She had realized someone was following her.
On the night of the crash, she switched vehicles with an associate.
The associate died.
The car burned.
Elena panicked.
She believed Richard would target Adrian and Dante if he knew she survived.
So she disappeared with help from federal investigators who were building a financial case.
Dante's anger remained.
But now grief lived beside it.
“Why come back?”
“Because Richard started moving money again.”
Ava opened E-17.
Her father’s handwriting covered several pages.
Vendor names.
Accounts.
Dates.
Then one sentence:
IF ANYTHING HAPPENS TO ME, CHECK R.H.
Richard Hale.
Ava pressed her fingers to the page.
Her father had written this.
She had been thirteen when he died.
Suddenly she remembered him sitting at the kitchen table late at night.
Numbers everywhere.
A cup of coffee going cold.
He used to tell her numbers were honest.
People weren't.
That was why Ava became an accountant.
Not because she loved money.
Because she loved certainty.
Elena touched another document.
“Richard learned you were becoming CFO.”
“So?”
“You would have discovered the old vendor system.”
“And Adrian?”
Elena looked toward Dante.
“Adrian found me three months ago.”
Dante stared.
“He knew you were alive?”
“Yes.”
“And didn't tell me?”
“I begged him not to.”
Ava understood.
Adrian had learned the truth.
Then something had happened.
“Richard got to him.”
Elena nodded.
“He offered Adrian control of the company if Adrian helped remove you.”
“Remove me how?”
“Discredit you.”
The theft.
Ava’s credentials.
The wedding humiliation.
If Ava were publicly exposed as both a rejected bride and suspected thief, no board would appoint her CFO.
Vanessa had been the perfect weapon.
“She thought Adrian loved her,” Ava said.
Elena looked ashamed.
“Yes.”
“Where is she?”
“I don't know.”
Then Elena showed them another document.
A payment made that morning.
$250,000.
Recipient:
Lorraine Monroe.
Ava stared.
“No.”
Elena said nothing.
“My mother wouldn't.”
But Ava remembered Lorraine giving Vanessa the key.
Lorraine trying to stop Ava from making a scene.
Lorraine’s fear when the anonymous message asked where she had been at 9:12.
Ava called her mother.
No answer.
Again.
Nothing.
Then Dante’s security team called.
Lorraine had left Ava’s house.
Her car had been found near a train station.
Empty.
Ava stared at the payment record.
“Why would Richard pay her?”
Elena answered softly.
“That is what you need to ask her.”
Ava’s phone vibrated.
A voice message.
Lorraine.
Ava played it.
Her mother was crying.
“Ava, I’m sorry. I thought I was protecting Vanessa. Richard said Adrian was going to destroy her life unless I helped. He told me the money was for a debt. I didn't understand what they were doing.”
Ava closed her eyes.
Then Lorraine said something else.
“There’s one thing I never told you about your father.”
Ava opened her eyes.
The recording continued.
“The night before he died, he gave me something. Richard has been looking for it ever since.”
Ava held the phone tighter.
“I hid it where neither you nor Vanessa would ever think to look.”
A pause.
Then Lorraine whispered:
“But Richard knows now.”
The message ended.
Another arrived immediately.
A photograph.
Lorraine sitting in the back seat of a car.
Richard Hale sat beside her.
May you like
And beneath the photograph were four words.
BRING ME E-17. ALONE.
