Chapter 9 - Emily’s Name
Daniel did not answer Vanessa.
He showed the message to Rebecca.
“Could be manipulation,” she said.
“It probably is.”
“Could also contain information.”
“I know.”
“Let investigators handle it.”
Daniel hated hearing that sentence.
But he forwarded the message to Deputy Holt.
Then he spent the evening trying not to imagine conspiracies.
Emily’s death had been investigated.
Black ice.
A mountain road.
A truck crossing the center line.
No evidence of foul play.
Daniel refused to let grief turn an accident into something more dramatic simply because Vanessa had invoked Emily’s name.
The next morning, Deputy Holt called.
“Vanessa wants a formal interview with counsel present.”
“About Emily?”
“Among other things.”
“Am I allowed to know what she says?”
“Not immediately.”
Daniel exhaled.
“Of course.”
Holt softened.
“If it relates to your daughter’s safety, we’ll act.”
That afternoon Daniel retrieved a box from storage.
Emily’s things.
He had packed them after her death and barely opened them since.
There were photographs.
A blue scarf.
A notebook filled mostly with grocery lists and sketches.
Hospital bracelets from Lily’s birth.
Then emails Daniel had printed during an argument years earlier because he was afraid he would lose track of what had been said.
Margaret had disliked Emily from the beginning.
Not because Emily was poor.
She wasn’t.
Not because she lacked education.
She had a master’s degree in landscape architecture.
Margaret disliked her because Emily could not be managed.
Daniel found one email dated three months before Lily was born.
From Emily to Daniel.
Your mother offered me money today.
He remembered.
He had been furious.
But he had also minimized it.
“She’s trying to help.”
That was what he had told Emily.
He read the rest.
She says if I move to Seattle before the baby arrives and stop expecting you to “rearrange your life,” she will make sure I’m comfortable.
Daniel closed his eyes.
Another email.
You keep asking me to give her time. Daniel, time is what people ask for when they intend to change. Your mother does not intend to change.
He had replied defensively.
She’s difficult, but she loves me.
Emily:
I’m not asking whether she loves you. I’m asking whether you will protect our daughter from the parts of that love that hurt everyone else.
Daniel sat on the storage-room floor.
He had forgotten the exact wording.
Or perhaps he had chosen to.
Emily had died before he fully answered the question.
Now Lily had answered it for him.
Daddy stay.
His phone rang.
Elise.
“Can I come over?”
“Why?”
“Because I found something.”
She arrived an hour later carrying an old laptop.
“This belonged to the family foundation.”
“How do you have it?”
“Margaret gave it to me last year when mine broke. IT wiped most of it.”
“Most?”
“There was a synced email archive.”
Daniel’s pulse quickened.
“Elise, don’t search private company records yourself.”
“I already did.”
Rebecca was going to hate this.
“What did you find?”
Elise opened an email from three years earlier.
Margaret to an outside public-relations consultant:
Emily Carter continues portraying Daniel as controlled by his family. I want background prepared in case she goes public about the financial offer.
Another:
Emphasize that they were never married.
Another:
If necessary, characterize her as emotionally unstable after pregnancy.
Daniel felt sick.
“They were preparing to smear her.”
“Yes.”
“Did they ever?”
“I don’t know.”
Emily had never gone public.
She had stayed.
Daniel had finally moved out of the family’s Denver house and bought a place with her.
For nine months, they had been happy.
Then she died.
Vanessa entered his life four months later.
She had been introduced by Margaret.
Daniel looked up sharply.
“What did Vanessa do before we met?”
Elise frowned.
“Corporate communications.”
“For Mercer?”
“For a PR agency we used.”
The room went silent.
Daniel opened another archived message.
The consultant replied to Margaret.
Vanessa Cole will prepare preliminary messaging.
Daniel stared at the name.
Vanessa Cole.
Before she became Vanessa Mercer.
His wife had not merely known about Emily.
She had helped Margaret prepare a public attack against her.
May you like
Two years before Vanessa claimed they had first met.
---
