Chapter 8 - Vanessa’s Mother Saw Everything
Susan Hale was alive.
Another fact Richard had never been told.
Vanessa said her mother lived in assisted care in Vermont.
Richard stared.
“You told me she died before our wedding.”
“I know.”
“Why?”
“Because she asked me to.”
Richard almost laughed from exhaustion.
“Does anyone in this family stay dead when I’m told they’re dead?”
Vanessa flinched.
“I’m sorry.”
Susan had hidden after Thomas’s death.
She believed someone was watching her.
Years later, she told Vanessa never to reveal her location to anyone
connected to the Coles.
Not even Richard.
They traveled to Vermont with investigators.
Susan was eighty.
Sharp-eyed.
She recognized Richard immediately.
“You look like Charles.”
“I’m not sure that’s a compliment anymore.”
Susan nodded.
“It isn’t.”
She had taken the photograph of Jonathan at Thomas’s boat.
Why was she there?
Because Thomas had asked her to meet him.
He planned to publicly acknowledge Anna and Vanessa.
He also planned to leave Charles’s company and expose financial
misconduct.
Susan arrived early.
She saw Jonathan near the boat.
He left before Thomas arrived.
She photographed him because she distrusted him.
“Did you see him damage the boat?”
“No.”
Important distinction.
She saw him there.
Nothing more.
After Thomas died, Susan gave the photograph to Charles.
Charles promised to investigate.
Instead, he told her the image proved nothing.
Then Jonathan approached Susan.
He threatened to expose her relationship with Thomas and challenge her
daughters’ inheritance.
She disappeared.
Richard asked, “Did Charles know Jonathan was blackmailing my mother?”
Susan looked surprised.
“No.”
That meant Jonathan had been manipulating both sides separately.
Evelyn believed Charles killed Thomas.
Susan believed Charles protected Jonathan.
Charles himself eventually discovered Jonathan’s theft.
A network of suspicion had kept everyone isolated.
Then Susan told them about one more person.
A mechanic named David Ross.
Thomas hired him privately after noticing problems with the boat.
David inspected the hydraulic line the day before Thomas died.
He told Thomas someone had tampered with it.
“What happened to David?”
Susan looked at Vanessa.
“He disappeared.”
Vanessa shook her head.
“I never knew.”
Susan nodded.
“Anna did.”
Richard called Anna.
She remembered David.
More importantly, she remembered where he went.
Canada.
Under a different name.
Investigators located him.
David was alive.
He agreed to speak.
His statement changed the case.
Jonathan had paid him ten thousand dollars after Thomas died.
Richard’s anger rose.
“To sabotage the boat?”
David shook his head.
“No.”
“To keep quiet?”
“No.”
“Then why?”
David looked ashamed.
“To repair it.”
Silence.
Jonathan had discovered the damaged line and paid David to fix it before
Thomas used the boat.
David repaired the line.
Thomas died anyway.
Richard stared.
“So Jonathan didn’t sabotage it?”
“I don’t know who did.”
The hydraulic line failed again because a second line had been cut.
One David had not inspected.
Someone else had tampered with the boat after Jonathan left.
The photograph that looked like proof against Jonathan was not proof of
murder.
Richard felt the case shift again.
Then David identified the person he saw near the marina later that
night.
May you like
Charles Cole.
Richard’s father.
