Chapter 6 - Julia Mercer
Vanessa couldn't move.
The woman descended the staircase slowly.
She was older than the face in the security footage had appeared.
Late fifties.
Same eyes as Vanessa.
Same shape of mouth.
But there was something fragile about her.
“Julia?” Vanessa whispered.
The woman nodded.
Vanessa's knees weakened.
Adrian caught her.
Julia stopped several feet away.
“I've imagined this moment every day.”
“Then why didn't you come?”
“Because Rebecca was watching.”
Daniel Reed descended behind her.
His father stared at him.
“Daniel, what have you done?”
“Protected them.”
The banking records had been deliberately routed through Thomas's office to expose Rebecca's accomplice.
The money hadn't been stolen.
It had been moved temporarily into traceable accounts.
“Why not tell us?” Adrian demanded.
Julia answered.
“Because we didn't know who to trust.”
Daniel placed the folder on a table.
Inside were photographs of Rebecca meeting someone.
Vanessa picked one up.
The person beside Rebecca was wearing a wedding-planner badge.
“Celeste?”
Vanessa's wedding planner.
The woman who had controlled the guest list.
The woman who had told security Claire was not welcome.
Suddenly my sister's public cruelty made more sense.
Celeste had spent months feeding Vanessa lies about me.
I had supposedly mocked the wedding.
Criticized Adrian.
Told relatives Vanessa only married for money.
None of it was true.
Vanessa stared at me.
“I believed her.”
“I know.”
“No. You don't understand. She showed me screenshots.”
“Fake?”
Daniel nodded.
“Rebecca built the conflict deliberately.”
Julia explained that Rebecca needed Claire isolated because Claire's trustee authority blocked permanent access to Vanessa's trust.
She couldn't simply kill me without drawing attention.
But if Vanessa publicly rejected me, Rebecca could create a narrative of family estrangement.
Then a forged resignation from the trust would look believable.
Mom discovered the plan.
Before she died naturally, she built safeguards.
Room 17.
Room 21.
The invitation.
Everything was designed to bring Vanessa and me together when Rebecca expected us to separate.
I laughed softly.
Mom.
Even dead, she was still forcing her daughters to talk.
Vanessa laughed too.
Then cried.
Julia stepped closer.
“May I?”
Vanessa looked at her biological mother.
After twenty-nine years, there was no correct answer.
So she simply opened her arms.
Julia hugged her.
I looked away.
Some moments didn't need witnesses.
Adrian took my shoulder.
“You okay?”
“No.”
“Fair.”
I smiled.
Then Daniel's phone rang.
He answered.
His expression changed.
“Celeste is gone.”
Adrian swore.
“With Rebecca?”
“We don't know.”
Daniel checked another message.
Then looked at Julia.
“What?”
Julia asked.
Daniel turned the screen around.
A photograph showed Rebecca standing outside a private airfield.
Beside her was Celeste.
And in Celeste's hand was a black folder marked:
VALE TRUST — ORIGINAL.
Thomas stared at it.
“If she has the original…”
“What?” Vanessa asked.
“She can challenge everything.”
Julia shook her head.
“Not everything.”
She looked at me.
“Margaret created one final document.”
“Where?”
Julia's expression became uneasy.
“She gave it to Claire.”
I frowned.
“No, she didn't.”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“The day she died.”
My heart stopped.
I remembered Mom's hospital room.
Her weak hand.
Her old leather handbag on the chair.
She had asked me to take it.
I had assumed she meant because it was mine now.
Julia looked toward the bag hanging from my shoulder.
“Margaret told me the document would never leave that bag.”
I opened it.
We had searched it already.
Nothing.
Then Vanessa took the bag.
“Mom repaired this lining.”
She touched the bottom.
Her fingernail caught beneath a seam.
The leather lifted.
A hidden compartment.
Inside was a folded document.
I pulled it free.
But before I could read it, someone behind us said:
“I wouldn't do that, Claire.”
We turned.
May you like
Celeste stood in the ballroom doorway.
And she wasn't alone.
