Chapter 6: What Elena Left Behind
Daniel Reeves answered on the second ring.
"Mr.
Calloway.
Thank you for calling."
Adrian was standing in the corridor outside the coat room, his back to the wall, his voice low.
"You said there was something beyond the children.
What does that mean?"
"Elena came to me about eight months before she passed," Reeves said.
"She was already managing her cardiac condition by then, but she was also dealing with something else.
She had discovered — and I want to be careful about how I say this — she had discovered that a significant amount of money had been moved out of a joint account she held with a former business partner."
Adrian frowned.
"Elena didn't have a business."
"She did," Reeves said.
"A small one.
A catering company she built over about three years.
She had a partner — a woman named Victoria Marsh."
The corridor seemed to narrow.
"Say that again," Adrian said.
"Victoria Marsh.
She and Elena were business partners for approximately two years before your relationship with Ms.
Marsh began.
Elena told me she didn't know you and Victoria had become involved until much later.
By that point, the business account had already been drained."
Adrian pressed his hand flat against the wall.
"How much?" he asked.
"Elena estimated around sixty thousand.
She didn't pursue it legally.
She was sick, she had two children, and she told me she was afraid." Reeves paused.
"She was afraid of Victoria specifically.
She said Victoria had made it clear — not in writing, never in writing — that if Elena caused problems, things would become difficult for the girls."
"She threatened her," Adrian said.
"Elena believed so, yes."
"And you're telling me this now because—"
"Because Elena asked me to.
She recorded a short video statement in the hospital, about three months before she passed.
A legal witness was present.
She gave me a sealed copy and asked me to deliver it to you personally if she didn't make it.
I've been trying to reach you through the contact information she had for you, but the number rang to voicemail every time."
Adrian thought about that.
His old number.
The one he had changed four years ago, shortly after Victoria told him Elena had moved on and wanted no contact.
Shortly after Victoria had made sure he was unreachable.
"I can be at your office tomorrow morning," Adrian said.
"I'll be here," Reeves said.
"Mr.
Calloway — the video is difficult to watch.
I want you to be prepared for that.
She was very ill by the time she recorded it.
But she was clear.
She was completely clear."
Adrian ended the call.
He stood in the corridor for a moment without moving.
Sixty thousand dollars.
Two years of Elena's work.
The business she had built from nothing, the way she built everything — carefully, quietly, without asking anyone for help.
Gone.
Taken by the woman who had then stepped into Adrian's life and spent four years making herself indispensable.
He thought about the wedding venue behind him.
The flowers.
The band.
The two hundred guests still milling around a ballroom, unsure whether to leave or wait.
Victoria had not been protecting him.
She had been managing him.
From the very beginning.
He pushed open the coat room door.
Ruth looked up.
Clara was sitting beside her, Mia awake now and chewing on the strap of Clara's bag with focused determination.
"Everything alright?" Ruth asked.
"No," Adrian said honestly.
"But it will be."
Clara watched him cross the room.
"What happens now?" she asked.
"Tonight, you and Mia come home with me," Adrian said.
"Tomorrow, I have a meeting I need to take.
And then we're going to start sorting all of this out properly."
"What about Victoria?"
Adrian crouched down to Clara's level again.
"Victoria is going to have to answer for some things," he said.
"That's not your problem to carry.
That's mine."
Clara nodded slowly.
Then she said, "Mama said you were a good man.
She said she was angry at you for a long time, but that underneath it she still thought you were good."
Adrian looked at her.
"She was right to be angry," he said.
"I should have fought harder to find her.
I should have known something was wrong."
"You didn't know," Clara said.
"No," he said.
"But I know now."
Mia reached out and grabbed his finger.
He let her hold it.
Ruth quietly picked up her bag and said she would go arrange a car.
In the empty ballroom down the hall, Adrian could hear the sound of guests finally beginning to leave — chairs scraping, voices low, the band packing up instruments that had never been played.
The wedding was over.
Everything else was just beginning.
But as Ruth reached the corridor door, she stopped.
She turned back, and her expression had changed.
"Adrian," she said carefully.
"Victoria's father is out here.
He says he's not leaving until he speaks to you.
May you like
And he has someone with him — a man I don't recognize.
He's carrying a folder."
