Chapter 3 - THE RED FILE Daniel caught Vanessa before she reached the kitchen.
She fought like a trapped animal.
“Get your hands off me!”
“Stop resisting.”
“You work for Michael!”
Daniel's expression remained cold.
“No. I work for Mr. Carter.”
Michael barely heard them.
His attention was fixed on the red file.
Robert turned another page.
Photographs.
Transfers.
Dates.
Names.
A pattern stretching back months before Rachel's death.
“You knew Vanessa,” Michael said.
Robert nodded.
“She was involved with Rachel's investigation.”
“Why didn't you tell me?”
“Because Rachel asked me not to.”
Michael stared at him.
“Why?”
Robert hesitated.
“Because she believed someone inside your family was involved.”
Michael thought of Henry.
His uncle.
Chief financial officer of Carter Industries.
The man who had stood beside him at Rachel's funeral.
The man who had told him to move forward.
“No,” Michael whispered.
Robert opened another document.
Henry's signature appeared on several financial transfers.
Michael felt something inside him crack.
“You're telling me my wife and my uncle stole from my children?”
“I’m telling you Rachel believed they did.”
“That isn't the same thing.”
“No.”
Robert placed another photograph on the table.
Rachel and Vanessa.
Together.
Three months before the crash.
Rachel was holding a folder.
Vanessa was smiling.
Michael remembered that smile.
He had seen it across his dining table countless times.
He had kissed those lips.
Trusted that woman.
Then Robert opened Rachel's letter.
Vanessa knows I found the Blackwood accounts.
Michael closed his eyes.
A memory surfaced.
Rachel sitting at the kitchen counter late at night.
Her laptop open.
Michael had asked what she was doing.
She had smiled.
“Nothing you need to worry about.”
He had believed her.
He had gone upstairs.
He had never asked again.
That memory now felt like a wound.
“Where is the original ledger?” Michael asked.
Robert looked at him.
“Rachel hid it.”
“Where?”
“She didn't tell me.”
Michael remembered Lily's words.
Under your office floor.
He turned toward the hallway.
Vanessa was watching him.
Her fear had disappeared.
Something colder had replaced it.
“Don't.”
Michael stopped.
“What?”
“You don't want to know what Rachel found.”
Michael stepped toward her.
“You killed her.”
Vanessa's eyes widened.
“You have no proof.”
Robert lifted the letter.
“Not yet.”
Outside, thunder rolled over the city.
Then Lily spoke.
“She pushed Mommy.”
Everyone turned.
Michael crouched beside her.
“Tell me.”
Lily squeezed her eyes shut.
“It was raining.”
Her voice trembled.
“Mommy stopped the car.”
“Why?”
“A lady waved at her.”
“What lady?”
Lily opened her eyes.
And pointed at Vanessa.
“You.”
Vanessa's face became completely white.
Lily continued.
“You had a red umbrella.”
Robert slowly looked at Michael.
Michael didn't blink.
May you like
The truth was beginning to take shape.
And it was uglier than anything he had imagined.
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