Chapter 7 - THE PRICE OF SILENCE
Daniel moved us into a hotel that night.
I fought him for twenty minutes.
Then Mia said, “Mom, please.”
That ended the argument.
The suite had two bedrooms, a kitchen, and a security guard outside the elevator.
Mia walked in and stared around.
“This hotel has a kitchen bigger than our apartment.”
Daniel looked uncomfortable.
“I can get something smaller.”
She laughed.
“I wasn’t complaining.”
For one strange second, we felt almost normal.
Then Daniel’s phone rang.
His mother.
He answered.
“Where is Grant?”
Silence.
“Don’t lie to me.”
More silence.
Daniel turned away from Mia.
“You sent a man to my daughter’s school.”
Mia went still.
I touched her shoulder.
Daniel’s jaw clenched.
“If he gets within a block of her again, I don’t care who he buried for this family. I will put him in prison.”
He hung up.
“What did she say?” I asked.
“That she didn’t send him.”
“You believe her?”
“No.”
An hour later, Vivian arrived anyway.
Security called upstairs.
Daniel nearly refused.
I said, “Let her come.”
He looked at me.
“Why?”
“Because I’m tired of people talking around me.”
Vivian entered the suite alone.
She saw Mia sitting at the table.
For the first time since I had known her, Vivian Vale looked afraid of a child.
Mia looked back.
“So you’re my grandma.”
Vivian swallowed.
“Yes.”
“You knew about me?”
No answer.
Mia’s face fell.
That told me everything.
Daniel stepped between them.
“You knew.”
Vivian said, “Daniel—”
“You knew Elena was pregnant.”
“I found out later.”
“How much later?”
“After the birth.”
I almost stopped breathing.
“You got my letters.”
“Yes.”
My hand shook.
“You read them?”
Vivian looked at me.
“Yes.”
I walked toward her.
Daniel moved too, probably afraid I would hit his seventy-year-old mother.
I wanted to.
God, I wanted to.
Instead I said, “You read a letter from a woman who had just given birth alone, begging her husband to know his daughter existed.”
Vivian’s eyes lowered.
“And you hid it.”
“I believed I was protecting Daniel.”
“From his own child?”
“I made mistakes.”
“No.”
My voice rose.
“Mistakes are forgetting an appointment. Burning dinner. Saying something cruel when you’re angry.”
I pointed toward Mia.
“You erased a father from her life.”
Vivian flinched.
Good.
Daniel asked, “Why?”
Vivian looked at him.
“Because your marriage was already becoming dangerous.”
“To who?”
She hesitated.
Daniel stepped closer.
“To who?”
“To the family.”
He laughed bitterly.
“There it is.”
Vivian’s face hardened.
“Elena had found financial records she did not understand.”
“I understood enough,” I said.
“She would have caused an investigation.”
“Maybe there should have been one.”
Vivian stared at me.
Daniel said, “Where did the foundation money go?”
Silence.
“Mom.”
“I never stole from the foundation.”
“Then who did?”
She looked toward the window.
“I can’t tell you.”
Daniel almost shouted.
“You destroyed my marriage, stole ten years with my daughter, and now you can’t tell me?”
Vivian’s voice broke.
“Because your father made me promise.”
That stopped him.
“My father?”
She nodded.
Daniel stepped back.
“What did Dad have to do with this?”
Vivian reached into her purse and pulled out an old photograph.
Robert Vale stood beside another man outside a courthouse.
The other man was Brooke’s father.
Victor Mercer.
Vivian put the photograph on the table.
“Your father discovered the missing money.”
Daniel stared at her.
“And?”
“He confronted Victor.”
My stomach tightened.
Vivian looked at me.
“Three days later, Victor told Robert that Elena had copies of the records.”
“I didn’t.”
“I know that now.”
Daniel whispered, “What did Dad do?”
Vivian closed her eyes.
“He told me to get Elena away from you.”
Daniel stared at the picture.
Then Vivian said, “What your father didn’t know was that I went much further.”
Before anyone could speak, Daniel’s phone buzzed.
A message from an unknown number.
A video.
Daniel opened it.
Grant Lyle appeared on the screen.
He looked directly into the camera.
“If you’re watching this, Daniel, your mother has probably blamed a dead man.”
He leaned closer.
“Don’t believe her.”
Then he said something that made Vivian grip the back of a chair.
May you like
“Robert Vale didn’t order Elena’s disappearance.”
“He was trying to stop it.”
