Chapter 3 - THE MAN WHO REMEMBERED
The next morning, I found Arthur in the greenhouse trimming dead leaves from my mother’s favorite roses.
He was seventy-two, thin, quiet, and always dressed like he expected royalty to arrive.
I held up the note.
“You wrote this.”
Arthur didn’t look at me.
“Burn it.”
“Why?”
“Because walls have ears in this house.”
I stepped closer.
“What happened the night Mom disappeared?”
His hands stopped.
“Miss Clara…”
“Tell me.”
He finally looked at me.
His eyes were wet.
“Your mother loved you more than anything.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“No.”
He sighed.
“It isn’t.”
Arthur locked the greenhouse door.
Then he pulled the curtains closed.
“Three years ago, your father was in serious financial trouble.”
I stared at him.
“Dad’s rich.”
“Now.”
Arthur reached into his coat.
He handed me an old photograph.
Dad was standing beside Vanessa.
The date was printed in the corner.
Four months before Mom’s accident.
“They knew each other?”
Arthur’s face hardened.
“Very well.”
I remembered Vanessa telling reporters she met Dad at a charity event one year after Mom died.
“She lied.”
“Yes.”
I stared at the photo.
“What does this have to do with Mom?”
“Your mother discovered money missing from the Whitmore Foundation.”
“How much?”
“Nearly eighteen million dollars.”
My stomach dropped.
“She believed your father was moving it through fake companies.”
“Why?”
Arthur’s jaw tightened.
“Because she found his signature.”
I looked toward the house.
Dad was eating breakfast twenty yards away.
Suddenly he didn’t look like my father.
He looked like a stranger wearing my father’s face.
“Did Mom confront him?”
Arthur nodded.
“The night she disappeared.”
A door slammed outside.
Arthur quickly took the photograph back.
“Go.”
“Wait.”
He grabbed my shoulders.
“Clara, if Vanessa asks whether we spoke, you say no.”
“Why?”
“Because I believe your mother’s crash was not an accident.”
My blood went cold.
Then someone knocked hard against the greenhouse glass.
Vanessa stood outside.
Smiling.
Arthur’s face drained of color.
May you like
And Vanessa lifted a phone in her hand.
On the screen was a photograph of us talking.
