Chapter 2 - What Lydia Had Been Afraid to Say
Evelyn asked the guests to move inside.
She did not apologize for the interruption.
She did not allow Vanessa to turn the reception into another performance.
The outside board members and Grant were directed into Richard’s library. Everyone else was offered dessert in the dining room.
Vanessa remained on the patio.
“You planned this.”
Evelyn adjusted the support Vanessa had dropped into her lap.
“I planned to ask questions where you couldn’t rewrite the answers afterward.”
“You humiliated me at Dad’s memorial.”
“He wasn’t your dad.”
Vanessa’s eyes hardened.
“No. He just expected me to spend fifteen years running his company like he was.”
That landed differently than Evelyn expected.
Lydia stepped between them.
“Enough.”
Evelyn looked at her aunt.
“You knew Grant returned money.”
Lydia glanced toward the house.
“Not here.”
“That’s what you said every time Dad did something nobody wanted discussed.”
Lydia flinched.
Vanessa gave a humorless laugh.
“There she is. Richard’s daughter.”
Evelyn wheeled toward the library.
Grant sat at the long walnut table with three directors and Mara Levin, the independent accountant Evelyn had hired two weeks earlier.
Grant placed the bank confirmation in front of Mara.
Nine months earlier, Harbor Ridge Consulting had received $86,000 from Vale House Hospitality.
The payment description referred to market research and property-development analysis.
Grant had returned $52,000.
“Why not all of it?” one director asked.
“Because thirty-four thousand had already been applied to a debt Vanessa owed my company.”
Vanessa entered.
“It wasn’t my debt.”
Grant looked at her.
“Your signature was on the guarantee.”
“It was an acquisition expense.”
“Then why was the acquisition never presented to the board?”
Vanessa turned to Evelyn.
“Ask your father.”
Nobody answered.
Grant explained what had happened.
Fourteen months earlier Vanessa had approached him about Harbor Ridge, a sixty-room former country inn outside Litchfield that had struggled after a costly renovation.
Vale House had considered buying it.
Richard did not want the seller to know Vale was interested because he believed the asking price would rise.
So Vanessa had negotiated through a limited liability company she controlled.
Grant had been told the LLC was acting for Vale.
“She put down earnest money,” Grant said. “Then the deal collapsed.”
“How much?” Evelyn asked.
“Four hundred thousand.”
Evelyn stared at Vanessa.
Vanessa crossed her arms.
“Richard told me to do it.”
“Personally?”
“Yes.”
“Without board approval?”
“He said we’d get approval after the price was locked.”
One of the directors, Thomas Bell, leaned back.
“He never brought Harbor Ridge to us.”
Vanessa laughed again.
“Then maybe you didn’t know Richard as well as you thought.”
Grant continued.
When the acquisition failed, his company kept part of the deposit under the contract.
Vanessa was personally responsible because her LLC had signed the agreement.
Then Vale House began sending Harbor Ridge Consulting payments.
“At first,” Grant said, “Richard authorized them.”
Evelyn turned sharply.
Mara slid four payment records across the table.
Each contained Richard’s digital authorization.
Not Vanessa’s.
Richard’s.
Evelyn remembered two of those weeks.
Her father had been undergoing treatment for lymphoma at Yale New Haven Hospital.
He had still worked from his study each morning.
She had assumed every transfer leaving Vale House was ordinary.
“Why did you return the later payment?” Evelyn asked.
“Because Richard called me.”
Vanessa stopped moving.
Grant looked at her.
“He asked why I was still invoicing Vale.”
“I never told you to invoice anybody.”
“No. You told me the payments were reimbursement for the failed acquisition.”
Grant looked back at Evelyn.
“Richard said the arrangement was over. He said if anything else arrived, I should send it back.”
“When?”
“Nine months ago.”
Lydia was standing in the doorway now.
Her hands were clasped tightly.
Evelyn remembered the payment chart on the patio.
The largest transfers had begun eight months ago.
After Richard supposedly ended the arrangement.
“Then where did the later money go?” Evelyn asked.
Grant shook his head.
“Not to me.”
Vanessa spoke immediately.
“That’s convenient.”
Grant pushed another paper toward Mara.
“My bank statements are yours.”
Evelyn looked at Lydia.
Her aunt had gone pale.
“What aren’t you telling me?”
Lydia sat down.
“Richard knew about the first payments.”
“We know.”
“No.”
Lydia looked at Vanessa.
“I mean he knew more than Grant just told you.”
Vanessa’s voice sharpened.
“Mom.”
Lydia ignored her.
“Your father created the original arrangement.”
Evelyn stared at her.
“And when he tried to stop it,” Lydia continued, “Vanessa came to me.”
Vanessa pushed away from the table.
“Don’t.”
Lydia’s eyes filled, but her voice remained steady.
“She needed one more payment.”
Evelyn understood before Lydia finished.
“You signed it.”
Lydia nodded.
“Seventy-five thousand dollars.”
Mara checked her spreadsheet.
“There’s a seventy-five-thousand-dollar transfer eight months ago.”
Lydia lowered her eyes.
“I thought I was helping fix Richard’s mistake.”
Evelyn looked at her aunt, then at Vanessa.
“What happened after that?”
Lydia took a long breath.
“I don’t know.”
May you like
Vanessa smiled faintly.
That was when Evelyn knew her cousin did.
