Chapter 3 - The Debt Daniel Had Blamed on Laura
Claire slept in Daniel’s bed that night.
Not because she was afraid of Vanessa.
At least, that wasn’t what she said.
She simply appeared in the doorway at ten fifteen carrying her pillow and asked, “Can I sleep here like when I was little?”
Daniel moved over.
Vanessa was in the guest room.
They had barely spoken since dinner.
Daniel waited until Claire’s breathing settled before going downstairs.
The Polaroid lay where he had left it.
He carried it into the small home office off the foyer and opened the file cabinet Laura had organized before she got sick.
Vanessa had wanted to clear it out after their wedding.
Daniel had refused mostly from laziness.
Now that laziness felt like luck.
There were folders for tax returns, mortgage statements, insurance policies, Riverlight Events.
Daniel pulled the business folder.
Inside were documents he had seen without really reading twelve years earlier.
Laura had handled the bookkeeping.
He had handled the panic.
He found a partnership tax schedule.
Two names were listed.
Laura Brooks.
Vanessa Hale.
Daniel sat back.
Hale.
Vanessa’s maiden name.
Not an employee.
Not someone who had “worked with” Laura.
A fifty-percent owner.
He kept looking.
Six cashier’s-check receipts had been stapled to an old home-equity statement.
$9,800.
$11,250.
$7,900.
$14,600.
$12,400.
$12,450.
Each check went from Daniel and Laura’s home-equity account into Riverlight.
On three of the deposit slips, Laura had written the same two words in blue ink.
Client refunds.
Daniel remembered those months.
Laura working after midnight.
Laura asking him whether they could postpone replacing the roof.
Laura crying once in the laundry room and insisting it was because she was exhausted.
Daniel had been angry.
Not cruel, he told himself.
But angry.
He had called Riverlight a hole in the ground.
He had told Laura she was risking their house for a business that had already failed.
She had never defended herself properly.
That had made him angrier.
A floorboard creaked outside the office.
Vanessa stood in the doorway.
“You should come to bed.”
Daniel held up the partnership document.
“Fifty percent.”
Vanessa said nothing.
“You owned half the company.”
“For a while.”
“Why didn’t Laura ever say your name?”
“You’d have to ask Laura.”
The sentence hit him so hard he stood.
“Don’t do that.”
Vanessa looked away.
“Don’t use the fact that she’s dead to make this her secret instead of yours.”
“I didn’t mean—”
“Yes, you did.”
Daniel gathered the papers into one stack.
“I’m calling the accountant tomorrow.”
Vanessa’s face changed.
Barely.
But enough.
“Daniel, don’t call Janice Mercer.”
He stared at her.
Vanessa realized it a moment later.
May you like
Too late.
Daniel had not said the accountant’s name.
