Chapter 7 - Evelyn Finally Admits Her Payments
Richard returned to the mansion with the letter.
Evelyn read it slowly.
She did not deny the payments.
“I gave Jonathan money.”
Vanessa closed her eyes.
Richard sat across from his mother.
“How much?”
“Over the years? Nearly two million.”
“Why?”
“Because he was blackmailing me.”
Richard stared.
“With what?”
Evelyn looked toward Maria.
“Please give us a moment.”
Maria left.
Evelyn spoke.
“When Thomas died, Charles and I were already having financial
problems.”
Thomas had discovered irregularities.
He threatened to expose Charles.
Evelyn begged him not to.
Thomas refused.
Then he died in a boating accident.
Richard had been fifteen.
“Are you telling me Dad killed Uncle Thomas?”
“No.”
“Then what?”
Evelyn’s eyes filled.
“I thought he might have.”
Silence.
After Thomas’s death, Jonathan approached Evelyn.
He claimed he had evidence Charles sabotaged Thomas’s boat.
He demanded money to keep it private.
Evelyn paid.
For decades.
Richard felt sick.
“Did you ever see the evidence?”
“No.”
“You paid two million dollars for evidence you never saw?”
“I was afraid.”
Vanessa laughed bitterly.
“Fear is expensive in this family.”
Evelyn nodded.
“Yes.”
Richard contacted investigators.
Thomas’s boating accident records were retrieved.
A mechanical report existed.
The steering system had failed.
At the time, investigators called it wear.
But one photograph showed a cut hydraulic line.
The image had been buried in an appendix.
Richard stared.
Two suspicious deaths.
Two brothers.
One attorney connected to both.
Then Maria returned unexpectedly.
“Mr. Cole, there’s someone at the gate.”
“Who?”
“Mr. Pierce.”
Everyone froze.
Jonathan had come back.
Police were notified.
Richard did not confront him alone.
Jonathan entered the mansion calmly with his attorney.
He looked genuinely surprised to see investigators.
“What is this?”
Richard placed Charles’s letter on the table.
Jonathan read it.
His expression barely changed.
“Your father was paranoid near the end.”
“Toxicology says he was poisoned.”
That changed him.
Only slightly.
But Richard saw it.
Jonathan recovered.
“Then perhaps you should investigate the people who were with him.”
“We are.”
Jonathan looked at Evelyn.
She flinched.
There it was.
A silent threat.
Richard noticed.
“So that’s how you controlled her.”
Jonathan smiled faintly.
“I have no idea what you mean.”
Richard placed Thomas’s accident photograph beside the letter.
Jonathan stopped smiling.
“You told my mother Dad sabotaged Thomas’s boat.”
Evelyn looked at Jonathan.
“I want to see the evidence.”
Jonathan said nothing.
“For thirty years,” Evelyn continued, “you told me you had proof.”
“Evelyn—”
“Show me.”
Jonathan’s face hardened.
“I don’t carry thirty-year-old files.”
Evelyn stared.
Then something changed in her.
Not certainty.
Release.
“You never had it.”
Jonathan looked away.
Evelyn began crying.
“You never had anything.”
Jonathan stood.
His attorney advised him to stop speaking.
He did.
Police could not arrest him merely because the family suspected him.
He left.
But his composure was gone.
That night, Richard received a message from an unknown number.
A photograph.
Jonathan standing beside Thomas’s damaged boat.
The timestamp was from the night before Thomas died.
Beneath it:
ASK VANESSA WHO TOOK THIS.
Richard stared at his wife.
Vanessa looked at the photograph.
May you like
Then whispered:
“My mother.”
