Chapter 3 - Someone Is Below the Yacht
Claire heard movement beneath the deck.
Richard turned sharply toward the cabin.
Vanessa whispered, “He came early.”
“Who?”
Richard told Claire to leave the marina.
She refused.
After twenty years of being told not to worry, not to ask, and not to
overreact, she was finished following unexplained instructions.
Marina security was called.
A man emerged from the lower cabin before they arrived.
Claire recognized him.
Martin Hale.
Richard’s longtime accountant.
He carried a laptop case.
Martin stopped when he saw Claire.
Then he saw the beige handbag.
“Oh, hell.”
Claire almost laughed.
Apparently everyone knew more about her bag than she did.
Security kept the situation calm while Claire called her attorney,
Rebecca Sloan.
Richard repeatedly insisted nothing criminal was happening.
Claire answered:
“I haven’t accused you of a crime.”
Again, his reaction told her too much.
Rebecca arrived within an hour.
Only then did Claire open Thomas’s envelope.
Inside was a handwritten letter and a flash drive.
Thomas had died four years earlier.
His letter began:
Claire,
If you are reading this, Richard has either told you the truth, or he
has waited too long.
There is an account in your name that you did not open.
Do not sign anything until you understand why.
Claire looked at Richard.
“What account?”
Martin lowered his eyes.
Richard whispered:
“It was supposed to be fixed before you ever found out.”
The bank statements in Claire’s bag suddenly made sense.
May you like
They were not Richard’s accounts.
They were hers.
