Chapter 13 - THE ASSISTANT’S FILE
By morning, the assistant had been found safe.
Her name was Leah Grant. She had turned off her phone and stayed with her sister after receiving threatening messages. When an officer contacted her, she agreed to meet at the investigator’s office.
Emma waited with Sofia while Leah gave her statement.
Leah had worked for Patricia for nine years. She said Patricia instructed her to prepare the document with Thomas Walker’s old signature copied from a separate form. Leah had refused to sign as a witness. Another employee had done it.
“I should have reported it then,” Leah told Emma afterward. “I was scared of losing my job.”
Emma held her gaze. “You came forward now.”
Leah handed Sofia a drive. “I kept the emails.”
The messages showed Patricia directing the false document’s preparation and discussing Emma’s signature on the newer transfer. They also showed Charles warning her to stop.
By afternoon, the investigation had expanded. The sale remained blocked. Patricia’s lawyers informed Sofia that their client would no longer speak directly to Emma.
Nathan sent Emma one message: I gave them my phone. They have the texts about the dress.
Emma read it, then set the phone aside. His cooperation mattered. It did not undo his part in it.
The next day, Emma returned to the workshop with Ruth. Police had finished examining it, and the owner had given them access to collect Thomas’s personal things.
Ruth stood beneath the photograph of her husband and his crew.
“He spent so much time here,” she said. “I used to think he loved this place more than home.”
“He was trying to hold it together for us.”
Ruth smiled sadly. “Both can be true.”
They packed his old tools, drawings, and a jar of pencils worn almost too short to hold. In a desk drawer, Emma found a sketch of her childhood bedroom. Her father had drawn a stronger window frame after she complained that the winter wind made her curtains move.
At the bottom he had written: EMMA NOTICES EVERYTHING.
Her phone rang. It was the investigator again.
“Ms. Walker, we’re finished reviewing the messages from Mr. Whitmore’s phone. There’s something you should know before it becomes public.”
Emma stepped outside to hear him.
“Nathan contacted Veronica the morning of the wedding,” he said. “He told her to make sure you saw the damaged dress before you reached the altar.”
Emma gripped the phone. “He told me he thought it would be a small tear.”
“The texts are clear. He wanted you to know she had done it.”
Emma looked back through the window at her mother packing Thomas’s pencils.
May you like
Nathan hadn’t merely failed to protect her. He had wanted her to feel alone.
And that evening, he appeared outside the workshop to ask her for one last chance to explain.
