Chapter 13
The revelations from the box changed everything.
The police reopened his father's case. They exhumed the body. They ran new tests.
The results came back two weeks later.
Poison.
A slow-acting toxin that mimicked the symptoms of late-stage cancer.
Margaret had murdered her husband.
The police arrested her again. This time, there was no bail.
Hale was arrested too. The DNA evidence linking him to Ethan and Vanessa gave the police probable cause to search his properties, his offices, his safe deposit boxes.
They found the smoking gun.
In a safety deposit box in a small bank in Savannah, they found detailed plans for the plane bombing. They found communications between Hale and the man who had planted the device. They found receipts. They found proof.
Hale had tried to destroy Ethan.
But he had also preserved the evidence of his crime.
He had been too proud to destroy it. Too certain he would never be caught.
The case against Hale and Margaret was airtight.
But Ethan felt no triumph.
He felt empty.
The woman who had raised him was a murderer.
The man who was his biological father was also a murderer.
And the sister he had grown up with was the daughter of his enemy, complicit in everything.
Vanessa came to see him one day.
She showed up at the house, her clothes rumpled, her face tear-streaked.
Security tried to turn her away, but Ethan told them to let her in.
She stood in the foyer, looking small and defeated.
“Ethan,” she said. “I'm sorry. I'm so sorry.”
Ethan looked at her.
He saw Hale's eyes in her face now. Saw the resemblance that he had never noticed before.
“Sorry for what?” he asked. “For helping Margaret throw Claire out? For lying to me when I woke up? For being Hale's daughter?”
Vanessa flinched.
“I didn't know. Not at first. I didn't know about Hale being my father. I didn't know about the plane crash. I just... I just wanted Mother to be proud of me. She always loved you more. Even when she was pretending to hate you, she was obsessed with you. I just wanted to matter.”
“You mattered to me,” Ethan said quietly. “You were my sister.”
Tears streamed down Vanessa's face.
“I know. And I threw it all away. For her. For approval that was never really there.”
She reached into her bag and pulled out an envelope.
“I have something. From Margaret. She gave it to me to hold. Just in case. She said it was insurance.”
Ethan took the envelope. He opened it.
Inside was a letter.
And a USB drive.
The letter was from Margaret. Addressed to no one in particular. Written in the event that everything fell apart.
It was a confession.
She detailed everything.
Her affair with Hale.
The truth about Ethan and Vanessa's paternity.
The murder of her husband.
The conspiracy to steal the company.
The plane bombing.
Everything.
And the USB drive contained video.
Video of Hale planting the bomb on the plane.
He had recorded it. For insurance. For leverage over Hale.
She had been planning to betray him all along.
Ethan looked at Vanessa.
“Why are you giving this to me?”
“Because it's the right thing to do. Because I owe you. Because I want to be free of her. Of all of it.”
Ethan handed the letter and the drive to Robert, who was standing nearby.
“Give these to the police,” he said.
Robert nodded and left.
Ethan turned back to Vanessa.
“What happens now?” she asked.
“For them? They'll go to prison for the rest of their lives. For you? That depends. The police will want to talk to you. You may face charges for your role in everything. But if you cooperate... if you testify... you might get probation. Maybe even immunity.”
Vanessa nodded.
“I'll do whatever it takes. I just... I don't want to be her anymore. I don't want to be any part of this.”
Ethan looked at her.
He thought about the years they had grown up together. The good memories. The times she had been a little sister, annoying but loving.
Before Margaret had poisoned her mind.
“Go to the police,” he said. “Tell them everything. And then... then you need to leave. Start over. Somewhere new. Be someone new.”
Vanessa nodded.
She turned to go, then paused.
“Ethan?”
“Yeah?”
“For what it's worth... I always thought you were the best of us. Even when I hated you for it.”
She left.
Ethan stood in the foyer for a long time.
It was over.
Or almost over.
May you like
But the scars would remain.
Forever.
