Chapter 6 - THE PLAN TO MAKE ME DISAPPEARI called Vanessa back immediately.
No answer.
Again.
Straight to voicemail.
By the third attempt, my hands were shaking so badly I could barely hold the phone.
I ran downstairs.
My father was meeting with Olivia and Samuel Reeves in the study.
They all stood when I entered.
“Emily?” Arthur asked.
I held up my phone.
“Vanessa called me.”
Reeves's expression sharpened.
“What did she say?”
I repeated everything.
The emails.
Daniel's father.
The marriage.
Marcus.
And the final sentence.
You were supposed to die last month.
My father gripped the edge of his desk.
Olivia immediately asked whether the call had been recorded.
“No,” I said.
“Did she give you any documents?”
“No.”
Reeves wrote something in his notebook.
“We need to find her and verify the information.”
My father reached for his phone.
“I'll have my security team—”
“No,” Reeves interrupted. “Let the police handle any immediate danger. Your team can share relevant information, but we don't want private security interfering with potential evidence.”
Arthur stopped.
Then nodded.
For all his wealth, my father had no authority to conduct a criminal investigation.
That responsibility belonged to the police.
Reeves contacted detectives in Manhattan and asked them to locate Vanessa.
Her apartment was empty.
Her phone had been switched off.
Her car was parked in the underground garage.
And according to the building's security staff, she had left in a dark SUV less than an hour earlier.
She was accompanied by a man wearing a baseball cap.
The cameras hadn't captured his face clearly.
My stomach twisted.
“Daniel?”
Reeves shook his head.
“Daniel was released under court-imposed conditions earlier today. We'll establish where he was.”
I stared at him.
“He's out?”
“Yes. That doesn't mean the assault case has gone away.”
I knew that.
But knowing Daniel was somewhere outside, free to make phone calls and arrange meetings, frightened me.
“What if he comes here?”
My father stepped closer.
“He won't reach you.”
I wanted to believe him.
But Daniel had reached me before.
In my own bedroom.
In my own kitchen.
In a penthouse filled with expensive security equipment.
Fear didn't disappear just because someone promised protection.
That night, I couldn't sleep.
Every time I closed my eyes, I remembered Vanessa's final words.
You were supposed to die last month.
Last month.
What happened last month?
I tried to remember.
There had been a charity dinner.
A weekend in the Hamptons.
Daniel's birthday.
And our anniversary trip.
My blood went cold.
Three weeks earlier, Daniel had surprised me with a weekend getaway to a secluded mountain resort.
He said he wanted to save our marriage.
He had been unusually attentive.
He bought flowers.
He apologized for his temper.
He promised to stop seeing Vanessa.
For three days, he behaved like the man I'd married.
On the second afternoon, he suggested we drive to a waterfall.
The road wound through steep mountains.
I remembered something unsettling.
Daniel had insisted I take his sports car.
When I reached for the seat belt, he joked that I was overly cautious.
And as we approached a sharp bend, the brakes made a strange grinding sound.
I'd refused to continue.
Daniel became furious.
He called me paranoid.
He said I always ruined his surprises.
We returned to the hotel.
The next day, he drove the car home himself.
I had forgotten about it.
Until now.
I sat upright.
My heart was hammering.
I reached for my phone and called my father.
He answered on the first ring.
“Emily?”
“Daddy, I think I know what Vanessa meant.”
The next morning, Reeves came back to the estate.
I told him about the mountain trip.
The sports car.
The strange noise.
Daniel's anger.
Reeves listened carefully.
“Where is the vehicle now?”
“At a garage Daniel uses in Manhattan, I think.”
“Do you know the registration?”
I gave him the information.
He wrote it down.
“We'll look into it.”
“Do you think Daniel tampered with the brakes?”
“I don't know. We need evidence.”
I nodded.
I was beginning to understand that suspicion and proof were not the same thing.
But something inside me was certain.
Daniel had planned more than my humiliation.
He had been preparing to get rid of me.
I thought about the ten-million-dollar insurance application.
The forged signature.
The mountain road.
The secret emails.
Suddenly, the pieces seemed to fit.
And I was terrified of what they might reveal.
Two days later, Olivia arrived with news.
She placed a laptop on the library table.
“Our forensic accountants have reviewed several accounts linked to Blackwood Development.”
I sat beside my father.
Olivia continued.
“They found payments to a private security contractor called Northbridge Protective Services.”
I frowned.
“Why is that unusual?”
“Because the payments weren't recorded as security expenses. They were disguised as consulting fees.”
She opened a spreadsheet.
“Some of the transfers coincided with your mountain trip.”
My mouth went dry.
“How much?”
“Just over two hundred thousand dollars.”
My father leaned forward.
“Who owns Northbridge?”
Olivia looked at him.
“A man named Victor Hale.”
The room went silent.
I recognized the name.
Victor Hale was a former police officer who had worked as a security consultant for Richard Blackwood.
I had met him twice.
He was tall, quiet, and had a habit of staring at people without blinking.
Olivia continued.
“Northbridge also received funds from accounts connected to Meridian Infrastructure Services eighteen years ago.”
My father's face hardened.
“The same company involved in Catherine's investigation.”
“Yes.”
My stomach twisted.
The past and present weren't separate.
They were connected.
The same network.
The same methods.
The same people protecting stolen money.
Only the victims had changed.
First my mother.
Now me.
Reeves arrived later that afternoon.
He had spoken with investigators examining Marcus Vale's death.
The medical examiner had not yet made a final determination, but the circumstances suggested foul play.
Marcus had apparently been trying to provide information to federal authorities shortly before he died.
His laptop was missing.
His phone had been damaged.
And investigators discovered that he'd withdrawn a large amount of money two days earlier.
“Was he trying to leave?” I asked.
“Possibly.”
“Or pay someone?”
“That's another possibility.”
Then Reeves shared something unexpected.
“Marcus rented a storage unit under an assumed name.”
My father frowned.
“Did you find it?”
“Yes.”
“What was inside?”
Reeves hesitated.
“Financial records, a hard drive, and several photographs.”
My heartbeat accelerated.
“Photographs of what?”
“Some relate to the old foundation case.”
I leaned forward.
“And the others?”
Reeves looked directly at me.
“Mrs. Blackwood, we found surveillance photographs of you taken over the last eight months.”
A cold wave passed through my body.
“Someone was watching me?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“Your apartment building. Restaurants. Your doctor's office. Your father's estate.”
I could barely breathe.
Then Reeves opened a folder.
Inside was a photograph of me walking down a sidewalk carrying grocery bags.
Another showed me sitting in a café.
A third showed me outside a medical clinic.
My stomach dropped.
“That's the clinic I went to last spring.”
Reeves nodded.
I stared at the picture.
I remembered that appointment.
I had gone because Daniel and I were trying to have a baby.
The doctor had told me I was healthy.
But Daniel had become strangely angry when I brought up starting a family afterward.
He said children would complicate our lives.
He insisted I wasn't ready to be a mother.
Then he accused me of trying to trap him.
At the time, I thought he was frightened of responsibility.
Now I wondered whether a child would have disrupted his plans.
My father studied the photographs.
“Who took these?”
“We're still establishing that.”
I turned to Reeves.
“Was Daniel involved?”
“We're investigating.”
I looked at the final photograph.
It showed me at the mountain resort.
Standing beside Daniel's sports car.
The photograph had been taken from a distance.
Someone had been waiting.
Watching.
And on the back, investigators had found a handwritten note.
Reeves read it aloud.
“Attempt one unsuccessful. Await further instructions.”
My father stood so abruptly that his chair struck the floor.
I stared at the words.
Attempt one.
Meaning there was supposed to be another.
Before anyone could speak, Reeves's phone rang.
He stepped into the hallway.
When he returned, his expression was grim.
“We found Vanessa.”
I gripped my father's hand.
“Is she alive?”
“Yes.”
Relief flooded through me.
“Where?”
“She's at a hospital in New Jersey.”
I stood.
“What happened?”
Reeves looked at me.
“She was discovered unconscious near an abandoned warehouse. She's recovering, and she's asked to speak with you.”
I stared at him.
“Why?”
He paused.
“Because she says Daniel gave her something before he tried to silence her.”
“What?”
May you like
Reeves took a breath.
“A copy of the document that could prove who ordered your mother's death.”
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