Chapter 15 - MAYA’S SECRET
Maya did not deny it.
She asked to speak with me in person.
We met inside a protected conference room.
Detective Torres remained outside the door.
Maya looked exhausted.
“I found Elise’s drive four years ago,” she said.
“That was before Adrian proposed to me.”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you warn me?”
The question came out sharper than I intended.
Maya accepted it.
“I tried.”
She had sent an anonymous email to my work account.
The message warned me that Adrian had been married before and that his wife had died under suspicious circumstances.
I never saw it.
The email had been redirected to spam and deleted.
Adrian knew my passwords.
Maya later placed a copy of Elise’s obituary beneath my windshield wiper.
Adrian found it before I reached the car.
He told Maya that if she contacted me again, Caleb would destroy her mother’s business and have her declared incompetent.
Maya believed him.
“So you watched me marry him.”
Tears rolled down her face.
“Yes.”
Anger rose inside me.
I wanted to tell her that fear was not an excuse.
Then I remembered sitting at the dinner table after Adrian lifted the plate.
I remembered twenty people watching.
Only Maya had stood.
“I should have done more,” she whispered.
“Yes.”
She flinched.
“But the responsibility for what Adrian did belongs to Adrian.”
“And the responsibility for what Caleb did belongs to Caleb.”
“You were trapped too.”
Maya covered her face.
For several minutes, neither of us spoke.
Then she explained why she had finally decided to give me the drive.
Two weeks before the dinner, she overheard Richard and Adrian discussing the forged deed.
Adrian said I would refuse.
Richard told him that public pressure would weaken me.
Caleb suggested inviting the entire family.
Vivian planned the announcement.
The dinner had been designed from the beginning.
Maya copied newer files onto Elise’s drive.
She kept it in her purse that evening.
She planned to hand it to me privately after dinner.
When Adrian struck me, she believed he might kill me before we left the estate.
“That’s why I stepped between you.”
I reached across the table.
Maya took my hand.
Forgiveness did not arrive like lightning.
It began as a decision not to let the Caldwell family turn two survivors against each other.
Detective Torres entered carrying an evidence envelope.
Investigators had searched Maya and Caleb’s home.
Behind a locked panel in Caleb’s office, they found insurance policies on Maya’s life.
The newest policy was worth eight million dollars.
It had been issued three months earlier.
The beneficiary was a Caldwell holding company.
Attached to the policy was a planned itinerary for an anniversary trip to Lake Tahoe.
May you like
Caleb had booked a private boat.
The return reservation listed only one passenger.
