Chapter 8 - The Two-Million-Dollar Lie
We returned to the ballroom with Adrian restrained.
Brooke refused to stand near her parents.
She sat beside Rachel instead.
I stood across from my father.
“Tell me he’s lying.”
Charles didn’t.
“Dad.”
He looked exhausted.
“The payment happened.”
My chest tightened.
“To whom?”
“A company called North Harbor Consulting.”
Nathan immediately checked with one of his agents.
His expression changed.
“North Harbor dissolved six years ago.”
I looked at my father.
“What did they do for you?”
“Nothing.”
“Then why did you send them two million dollars?”
“Because they contacted me after Leah died.”
“What did they want?”
“They had photographs of you.”
The old picture from my college dorm flashed through my mind.
My father continued.
“They claimed Leah had left evidence with you.”
“She hadn’t.”
“I know that now.”
“And you paid them?”
“They threatened to kill you.”
My anger collided with something else.
Fear.
Not present fear.
The old, sickening kind that comes from realizing your past was more dangerous than you understood.
“Why didn’t you tell the police?”
“Because the message said any contact with law enforcement would put you next.”
“So you paid criminals.”
“Yes.”
“And kept it secret for seven years.”
“Yes.”
Conrad laughed.
“Touching.”
I turned toward him.
He looked almost pleased.
“Charles always was good at making cowardice sound like fatherhood.”
My father moved toward him.
I stepped between them.
“No.”
They both looked at me.
“No more private wars.”
I pointed toward the federal agents.
“If there’s evidence, they get it.”
Conrad’s smile faded.
That mattered.
Nathan asked my father for banking records.
Charles handed over his phone without arguing.
Then Brooke approached me.
She had a bruise forming around her wrist.
“I remember something else.”
“What?”
“The night Leah came to our house.”
She glanced at Adrian.
“He was twenty-two.”
Adrian stared back.
“He followed her outside.”
Rachel leaned closer.
“Did you see where he went?”
“No.”
“But he came back an hour later.”
Brooke swallowed.
“His shirt was wet.”
Adrian laughed.
“It was raining.”
Brooke shook her head.
“It hadn’t started raining yet.”
Silence.
Adrian’s face hardened.
“What are you accusing me of?”
Brooke looked terrified.
But this time she didn’t look away.
“I’m saying you lied then too.”
Rachel asked her another question.
“Did you ever hear your father discuss Leah’s crash?”
Brooke nodded slowly.
“Once.”
Conrad snapped.
“No.”
Brooke continued.
“Dad was screaming at somebody in his office.”
“What did he say?”
Her voice became barely audible.
“He said, ‘I told you to scare her, not kill her.’”
Conrad stepped forward.
“That never happened.”
Brooke flinched.
I looked at him.
“You remember who he was talking to?”
Brooke’s eyes moved across the ballroom.
Past Adrian.
Past her father.
Then stopped.
On Owen Shaw.
My head of security.
The man who had worked for my family for twelve years.
Brooke raised one trembling hand.
“Him.”
Owen didn’t deny it.
May you like
He simply reached for his radio.
And every light in the mansion went out again.
