Chapter 4 - Rachel Had Warned Victoria First
Victoria had kept Rachel’s last letter in a bank deposit box.
She retrieved it the following morning with police present.
Rachel’s handwriting covered six pages.
Ethan read the first line twice.
Victoria, if anything happens to me, do not assume it was Ethan.
His throat tightened.
Sophia had spent two years telling him Victoria blamed him for Rachel’s
fatal car crash.
Rachel’s letter proved the opposite.
She trusted him.
What she did not trust was the financial network surrounding his
company.
Rachel wrote that Marcus had once managed accounts for her father’s
foundation.
After her father died, she found irregular transfers and fired him.
Years later, Marcus resurfaced as counsel for Whitmore Medical Systems.
Ethan had never known.
Rachel began investigating quietly.
Then Sophia appeared.
Not as Ethan’s romantic interest.
As Marcus’s sister.
Rachel had met her twice.
The second meeting ended with Rachel writing one sentence in her
journal:
Sophia wants to know how much Noah inherits if I die.
Ethan stopped reading.
Noah sat beside him.
“Mom wrote that?”
“Yes.”
“Did Sophia hurt Mom?”
Ethan refused to guess.
“I don’t know.”
Victoria appreciated the answer.
Evidence mattered.
Not rage.
Rachel’s letter said she had discovered a hidden account called Project
Harbor.
Millions had moved through it.
The transfers were approved using Ethan’s father’s credentials even
after his death.
Rachel suspected Marcus had forged the approvals.
But she had not yet proven it.
Then she wrote something stranger.
Sophia was not helping Marcus for money.
She was searching for a patient file.
Ethan frowned.
“What patient?”
Victoria shook her head.
Rachel had not named one.
The final page contained instructions.
If Rachel died before finishing the investigation, Victoria was to
protect the original trust and keep it away from Marcus.
Victoria admitted she had failed Rachel in one way.
She disappeared from Ethan’s life because Sophia manipulated messages
between them.
Ethan had received emails supposedly from Victoria accusing him of
causing Rachel’s death.
Victoria had received messages supposedly from Ethan ordering her to
stay away from Noah.
Neither had sent them.
Sophia had isolated them.
Ethan looked at Noah.
His son had nearly lost the one adult Rachel specifically chose to
protect him.
Then police called.
Marcus’s abandoned car had been found.
Inside was a burned folder.
One page survived.
At the top:
PATIENT 417 — NOAH WHITMORE.
Ethan’s blood went cold.
May you like
Project Harbor was not only about money.
It involved his son.
