Chapter 14 - RICHARD’S LAST MOVE
We didn’t need the original letter to prove the trust existed.
But Joe didn’t know that.
Vanessa apparently didn’t either.
Police stopped her before she left our street.
The letter was inside her purse.
So was twenty thousand dollars in cash.
Joe had paid everyone.
Mark.
Vanessa.
Consultants.
Private investigators.
Even a former nurse who had agreed to describe me as “emotionally unstable” in a future custody hearing.
By sunrise, the story was no longer about adultery.
It was conspiracy.
Fraud.
Forgery.
Attempted theft.
And a custody scheme built around my son’s medical history.
At 8:30 a.m., Claire and I walked into Vance Development’s boardroom.
I hadn’t slept.
I was still wearing last night’s dress under a borrowed coat.
Tommy sat in a conference room down the hall with David, eating pancakes somebody had ordered.
He refused to go home without me.
The emergency board meeting lasted forty-three minutes.
Joe appeared by video with his attorney.
He looked exhausted.
Still arrogant.
“Sarah has no business running this company.”
I looked at the directors.
“I don’t want to run it.”
Joe smiled.
Then I continued.
“I want professionals to run it.”
His smile disappeared.
“I’m exercising the trust’s emergency voting rights to suspend Joseph Vance as CEO pending investigation.”
Joe hit the table on his end.
“You can’t do that!”
Claire slid the documents forward.
“I just did.”
The vote was called.
Seven in favor.
One opposed.
Eleanor.
I looked at her.
She slowly raised her hand.
“Change my vote.”
The chairman frowned.
“To?”
“In favor.”
Joe stared at his mother on the screen.
“You’re choosing her?”
Eleanor looked straight into the camera.
“No.”
She paused.
“I’m finally choosing the company over you.”
Joe’s face changed.
Not anger.
Betrayal.
Funny.
The man who betrayed everyone around him couldn’t survive being abandoned once.
“You’ll regret this.”
Eleanor said nothing.
The chairman completed the vote.
Joseph Vance was suspended.
Mark Delaney resigned before anyone could fire him.
The company hired independent forensic accountants.
By noon, they found more.
Much more.
Shell companies.
Fake vendors.
Personal expenses.
Private flights.
Property.
Payments to keep people quiet.
The total was eventually estimated at more than eighteen million dollars.
Claire placed the preliminary report in front of me.
“This is going to get ugly.”
“It already is.”
“No. I mean legally.”
I looked through the glass wall.
Tommy was sleeping on a couch with his head against David’s shoulder.
“Let it.”
Claire studied me.
“And the divorce?”
I almost laughed.
“What do you think?”
“I think Joe is about to discover adultery is the least expensive mistake he made.”
My phone rang.
Tracy.
I answered.
“Hello?”
She was crying.
“Sarah, I’m sorry.”
“What happened?”
“It’s Leo.”
My stomach dropped.
“Is he okay?”
“Yes. But I got the results.”
“What results?”
“A DNA test.”
I sat down slowly.
“Why did you take a DNA test?”
“Because last night Joe said something when he was angry.”
“What?”
“He said if I turned on him, he’d make sure I lost ‘a child that was never his anyway.’”
I said nothing.
Tracy’s breathing shook.
“I thought he was just trying to hurt me.”
“And?”
“The test came back.”
I closed my eyes.
“Joe isn’t Leo’s father?”
“No.”
That should have felt like justice.
It didn’t.
Because Leo was three.
He had called Joe Daddy.
And once again, a child was about to pay for an adult’s lie.
Then Tracy whispered:
“There’s something else you need to know.”
May you like
“What?”
“Joe knew.”
