Chapter 8 - The Price of the Truth
Grant called the police.
Emma called Lily's school.
Their daughter was safe with a trusted family friend, but the necklace had disappeared from the house.
The police advised them not to contact Victor.
Grant ignored the instruction.
He called his father.
Victor answered immediately.
“Son.”
“Where is the necklace?”
A quiet chuckle.
“Straight to business again.”
“Give it back.”
“Come to the old warehouse. Bring the original ownership agreement.”
“I don't have it.”
“Then find it.”
“Where's Lily's necklace?”
“Safe.”
Grant closed his eyes.
“If you touch my daughter—”
“Don't threaten me, Grant. You have no idea what I've sacrificed for you.”
Emma took the phone.
“Victor.”
Silence.
Then his voice changed.
“Emma. I wondered when you'd join us.”
“You've involved a child.”
“I haven't harmed her.”
“You stole something that belongs to her.”
“I borrowed it.”
“Return it.”
Victor sighed.
“You sound exactly like your mother.”
Emma stiffened.
“My mother?”
“Yes. Another woman who believed she could tell a Caldwell man what to do.”
Emma looked at Grant.
“What are you talking about?”
Victor continued.
“Your mother understood something you never did. Families have secrets. Some secrets are better left buried.”
The call ended.
Emma stared at the phone.
“Why did he mention my mother?”
Grant looked away.
“Emma, there's something else.”
She laughed bitterly.
“Of course there is.”
He took a breath.
“Your mother knew Ethan.”
Emma felt the floor shift beneath her.
“What?”
“Before you met me, she worked for a financial services company that handled some of Victor's accounts.”
“My mother was a schoolteacher.”
“She taught during the day. She also did bookkeeping for a small firm.”
Emma shook her head.
“Why would you know that?”
“Because I found her name in the old records.”
“Did you tell her?”
“No.”
“Did she know about Victor's business dealings?”
“I don't know.”
Emma turned away.
Her mother had died eight years earlier.
There were questions she could never ask her now.
“What else did you find?”
Grant removed another paper from the envelope.
It was a handwritten note.
The handwriting was unfamiliar.
But the message was clear.
The original agreement is not in the warehouse. It is in the one place Victor would never think to search.
Emma read it.
Then she looked at the photograph of Lily.
The lake house.
The family had spent countless summers there.
Emma remembered the old wooden dock.
The stone fireplace.
The small garden her mother had helped plant.
And the bedroom where she had kept Lily's things when she was a toddler.
“There's a safe beneath the floorboards,” Emma said.
Grant frowned.
“What?”
“My mother installed it.”
“You never told me.”
“I forgot it existed.”
They drove to the lake house with a police escort.
The property looked unchanged.
But inside, several drawers had been opened.
Someone had searched the bedroom.
Emma went straight to the small room overlooking the water.
She moved the rug.
Beneath it was a narrow wooden panel.
Grant helped lift it.
A small safe sat underneath.
Emma entered the combination.
Her mother's birthday.
The lock clicked.
Inside were three objects.
A folded letter.
A photograph.
And a sealed envelope containing an original company agreement.
Emma opened the agreement.
Her signature was there.
So was Grant's.
But the final page contained a clause that changed everything.
Her original twenty-percent ownership had never been transferred.
The document Victor had used was only a temporary proxy authorization.
It had expired years earlier.
Which meant the shares still belonged to Emma.
Grant read the clause twice.
“Emma.”
She looked up.
“What?”
“You still own twenty percent.”
“Then why did Victor claim otherwise?”
“Because he forged the transfer.”
Emma examined the final page.
There was another name beside the witness signature.
Her mother.
And beneath it, a handwritten note.
The Caldwell family will never know what this document really means until the trust is activated.
Emma opened the sealed letter.
Her mother's handwriting appeared.
My darling Emma,
If you have found this, then Victor has finally made the mistake I always feared.
Your twenty percent is only the beginning.
The remaining controlling interest was placed into a family trust before Northstar was founded.
You are its named beneficiary.
Emma stopped reading.
Grant stared at her.
“That's impossible.”
Emma continued.
The trust was established by Ethan Brooks and your mother.
The person who controls the trust can determine the future of Northstar.
The room went silent.
Grant looked at the photograph.
It showed Emma's mother standing beside a younger Ethan.
They were holding a newborn baby.
Emma recognized the hospital blanket.
It was the same one she had been wrapped in.
Her mother had never told her.
The letter ended with one sentence.
The child in this photograph is the reason Victor has been trying to destroy our family.
Emma slowly lowered the paper.
“Grant?”
He didn't answer.
Because he had just recognized the baby.
And he knew that the secret had nothing to do with money.
May you like
It had to do with Emma's birth.
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