Chapter 8: The Last Letter
Graham read the message twice.
“You are not going alone.”
“She may destroy the letters if she sees anyone else.”
“She may destroy them anyway.”
Marguerite stood beside Lily’s bedroom door.
“Vanessa wants you frightened enough to make a mistake.”
My phone lit up again.
The old conservatory.
Midnight.
No police.
Bring a statement clearing me.
I typed back.
I need proof the letters are there.
A photograph arrived showing the blue box on a stone bench.
Anna’s final letter lay across the lid, still sealed and bearing Lily’s name.
Marguerite touched the screen.
“Anna wrote that the week before she was gone.”
“I know.”
Lily appeared in the doorway holding her stuffed rabbit.
“Is that Mommy’s box?”
I lowered the phone.
“Yes.”
“Are you going to get it?”
“I am.”
“Then take people who love you.”
Graham looked at me.
“The police can remain out of sight.”
At midnight, I entered the abandoned conservatory with a folded statement in my pocket.
Vanessa stood beside the blue box, holding a metal lighter.
“You brought it?” she asked.
I showed her the paper.
She extended her hand.
“Give it to me.”
“The box first.”
“You don’t make the rules anymore.”
“You lost the petition.
The account is frozen.
Conrad is cooperating.”
“Conrad will say anything to save himself.”
“And your mother?”
Vanessa’s thumb moved over the lighter.
“She has always hated me.”
“She paid your debt.”
“She paid to control me.”
I stepped closer.
“What do you want?”
“A signed statement saying you authorized the transfer and misunderstood the guardianship plan.”
“That is a lie.”
“It is also the price of Anna’s letters.”
“You frightened Lily, forged my name and tried to take her inheritance.”
“I was building a life.”
“You were removing everyone you couldn’t control.”
Her hand trembled once.
“You don’t understand what it is like to stand beside someone like you,” she said.
“The devoted widower.
The successful father.
Everyone would always compare me to Anna.”
“No one asked you to replace her.”
“Lily did every time she looked at me.”
“She was seven.”
“She had this house, that trust and a father who would choose her every time.”
“Yes,” I said.
“I choose her.”
Vanessa’s face twisted.
“Then lose the letters.”
She flicked the lighter.
I moved forward, but Eleanor stepped from behind a broken glass partition.
“Vanessa, don’t.”
Vanessa stared at her mother.
“He brought you?”
“I came because I should have stopped you years ago.”
“You chose him over me.”
“I chose a child you were willing to frighten.”
Vanessa held the flame near the envelope.
Eleanor walked toward her with both hands open.
“Give me the box.”
“Why?
So you can hand it to your new perfect family?”
“So I can finally help my daughter do one decent thing.”
For a moment, Vanessa’s hand lowered.
Then she snatched the statement from me and unfolded it.
The page was blank.
“You tricked me.”
“No,” I said.
“I gave you one last chance.”
Officers entered through both doors.
Vanessa threw the lighter toward the box.
Eleanor caught the envelope and pulled it away as I stamped out the flame on the stone floor.
An officer took Vanessa’s wrists.
“This is entrapment!” she shouted.
“No,” Graham said from the doorway.
“Your demand was recorded after legal authorization.”
Vanessa looked at her mother.
“You will regret this when you have no daughter left.”
Eleanor held Anna’s letter against her chest.
“I lost my daughter when I taught her consequences could always be purchased.”
As the officers led Vanessa outside, she twisted toward me.
“Lily will grow up and leave you too.”
I picked up the blue box.
“Then I will love her enough to let her.”
The following morning, Graham met me outside the courthouse.
“The prosecutor has reviewed the recording, the forged signatures and the bank records,” he said.
“Vanessa is being charged with fraud, attempted theft from a child’s trust, forgery and coercion.”
“Will she be released?”
“Possibly, until trial.”
A black car stopped at the curb.
Vanessa stepped out with an officer beside her, met my eyes and smiled again.
May you like
“This is not finished,” she said.
“I still know what Anna wrote about you.”
