Chapter 9 - Edmund Finally Told Me What He Was Really Looking For
By the following evening, Edmund’s arrogance had cracked.
He still denied harming Isabella.
He still claimed he’d only wanted to “protect family property.”
But exhaustion and legal pressure have a way of stripping dignity from men who are used to controlling rooms through confidence alone.
He asked for a deal.
There was no deal.
Then he asked for “context.”
I let him speak.
“The notebook only has half the story,” he said.
“Then tell me the other half.”
He looked at me carefully.
“Your father changed his mind near the end.”
“About what?”
“About who should control the foundation and the clinic land.”
There it was—the real center.
My family’s charitable foundation included a veterans clinic and two adjoining parcels of land now worth millions. My father had built those projects with obsession. Control over them meant influence, prestige, and enormous financial leverage.
“Did he change it legally?”
Edmund was silent.
“That’s what Isabella was checking, wasn’t she?”
He looked away.
“She found documents she wasn’t supposed to see.”
“And then?”
“She became emotional.”
I leaned forward.
“And then?”
He laughed once, bitterly.
“She told Marina that if anything happened to her, the notebook would finish what she started.”
That statement did two things at once.
It confirmed Marina had known far more than she initially admitted.
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And it proved Edmund had feared the notebook long before Isabella died.
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