Chapter 9 - One Last Wish
The survivor was Victoria.
She had been with Daniel when the brakes failed.
She escaped before the car entered the river.
For twenty-seven years, she had hidden the truth because Charles Hale threatened her child.
That child was Vanessa.
Grant stared at the report.
“Victoria is Vanessa’s mother?”
Margaret nodded.
Vanessa had been raised believing her mother died when she was an infant.
Charles had erased Victoria from the family.
The discovery explained Victoria’s obsession with the wedding.
She had not returned simply for money.
She wanted revenge on the Calloways and the Hales simultaneously.
Vanessa had been her instrument.
But Vanessa had eventually become something Victoria had not predicted.
Dangerous on her own.
Grant visited Vanessa in custody.
She looked smaller without designer clothes, cameras or carefully arranged blond hair.
“Did you know?”
“No.”
“Victoria is your mother.”
Vanessa’s eyes changed.
Grant slid the DNA report across the table.
Vanessa read it.
Her hands began trembling.
“She told me Evelyn destroyed my life.”
“No.”
“She said you would humiliate me.”
“I ended our engagement because I should never have proposed.”
Vanessa looked up.
“Because of Evelyn.”
“Because I didn’t love you enough to marry you.”
The truth hurt more because he said it without cruelty.
Vanessa cried.
Grant stood.
“Where is Victoria?”
“I don’t know.”
He turned toward the door.
“Grant.”
He stopped.
“I did love you.”
“I know.”
“I just hated that loving me looked like work, and loving her looked like breathing.”
Grant closed his eyes.
Vanessa whispered, “Victoria has another place.”
He turned.
“A cabin near Lake Ashford.”
Police reached it before midnight.
Victoria was gone.
But they found documents connecting her to Evelyn’s abduction.
They also found a letter.
For Vanessa.
Grant did not read it.
The detectives did.
Victoria admitted manipulating her daughter.
She claimed she never intended Evelyn to die.
But the final line disturbed investigators.
If Grant discovers what Grace really intended for the ring, everything begins again.
Grant returned home.
Evelyn stood in the kitchen making coffee.
“You’re supposed to be resting.”
“You say that a lot.”
“And you ignore me a lot.”
He approached.
For a moment, neither spoke.
Then Evelyn said, “You went to see Vanessa.”
“Yes.”
“How is she?”
“Broken.”
Evelyn looked down.
Grant touched her hand.
“She told me something.”
“What?”
“Victoria thinks my mother’s ring contains another secret.”
Evelyn examined it.
The ivy engraving looked ordinary.
Grant pressed one leaf.
Nothing.
Then Evelyn noticed a tiny seam.
She twisted the inner band.
A section opened.
Inside was a tightly rolled strip of paper.
Grant carefully removed it.
Only an address was written there.
May you like
And beneath the address was a date.
Tomorrow.
