At 5:47 that evening, Marcy called again.
“Something disappeared.”
I had been expecting panic.
Her voice was too controlled for panic.
That frightened me more.
“What?”
“A folder from the company’s shared legal archive.”
“When?”
“Twenty-three minutes before the preservation notice was delivered.”
I stood from the sofa.
“Can they recover it?”
“Probably.”
“Who deleted it?”
“We’re tracing access.”
“Adrian?”
“Don’t assume.”
That was why I trusted Marcy.
She refused to convert suspicion into fact simply because the fact would be convenient.
“What was in the folder?”
“We don’t know completely.”
“How can you know it matters?”
“Because of the title.”
I waited.
“Project Northbridge.”
The name meant nothing.
“Should it?”
“It appears in two payment descriptions Julian gave us.”
I walked toward the dining table.
“Connected to Vivienne?”
“One directly. One indirectly.”
My pulse quickened.
“What was Northbridge?”
“That’s the question.”
I opened my notes.
“There were consulting payments.”
“Yes.”
“To her cousin.”
“Yes.”
“Could Northbridge have been an actual project?”
“Possibly.”
“Then find out.”
“We are.”
Marcy paused.
“And Mara?”
“Yes?”
“Adrian knows lawyers are involved now.”
“I assumed.”
“Expect a change in strategy.”
“What kind?”
“People behave differently when charm stops working.”
I looked toward the door.
Adrian’s access had been removed.
The lock had also been changed that afternoon.
“I’m prepared.”
“No,” Marcy said. “You’re informed. That’s different.”
Twenty minutes later, my father arrived.
He rarely came unannounced.
He carried dinner.
That was how I knew he was worried.
“Thai,” he said, lifting the bag.
“You hate Thai.”
“I hate coriander.”
“You say everything has coriander.”
“Most mistakes do.”
Despite everything, I smiled.
We ate at the kitchen island.
For five minutes, neither of us mentioned Adrian.
Then Dad put down his fork.
“What do you want to happen?”
I knew he was not asking about lawsuits.
“I don’t know.”
“That’s allowed.”
“I keep wanting one fact that makes everything simple.”
“Life rarely respects that preference.”
“I know.”
I looked down at my plate.
“If he used me from the beginning, I can hate him.”
My father said nothing.
“If he loved me but still exploited me, that’s harder.”
“Yes.”
“If he started with selfish reasons and then genuinely loved me, that’s worse.”
Dad leaned back.
“Why?”
“Because then there was something real to lose.”
He watched me for a long moment.
“Love being real does not make every action acceptable.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
I looked at him.
He had never told me to leave Adrian.
Even now.
That made his questions difficult to dismiss.
“I think so.”
My phone rang.
Unknown number.
Dad glanced at it.
“Answer.”
I did.
“Mara Mercer?”
“Yes.”
“This is Daniel Reese. I represent Adrian Vale.”
My father’s expression changed immediately.
I turned on speaker.
“My counsel is Marcy Gold. You should contact her.”
“I have.”
“Then why are you calling me?”
“Mr. Vale requested that I pass along a personal proposal.”
Dad raised an eyebrow.
“What proposal?”
“A private meeting between you and Mr. Vale, with counsel present if you prefer.”
“No.”
Reese paused.
“You haven’t heard the purpose.”
“I don’t need to.”
“He would like to resolve both the engagement dispute and the current company misunderstanding without further escalation.”
My father’s mouth tightened.
Company misunderstanding.
“Tell him to send anything relevant through Marcy.”
“Mara, Mr. Vale is concerned that this has become unnecessarily adversarial.”
I laughed once.
“I’m sure he is.”
“He believes the relationship can still be repaired.”
That hurt more than I expected.
I stared at the granite counter.
“Does he?”
“Yes.”
“Then he should have treated it as something worth protecting before lawyers became inconvenient.”
Reese did not answer immediately.
My father looked at me, but said nothing.
“Anything else?” I asked.
“There is one additional matter.”
“Go ahead.”
“Mr. Vale strongly advises you to stop communicating with Julian Cross.”
“Why?”
“Mr. Cross may possess unlawfully obtained proprietary information.”
“Then your client can address that through counsel.”
“He is trying to protect you.”
I almost ended the call.
Instead, I asked, “From what?”
A pause.
“From becoming entangled in Mr. Cross’s longstanding grievances.”
My father shook his head.
I said, “Good evening, Mr. Reese.”
I disconnected.
Dad picked up his fork.
“He’s scared.”
“Adrian?”
“Yes.”
“How can you tell?”
“Lawyers don’t call someone’s fiancée during dinner because everyone feels secure.”
“Former fiancée.”
He looked at my bare hand.
“Is that official?”
“I don’t know what official means anymore.”
“It means what you decide it means.”
Before I could answer, Noelle called.
“I found Northbridge.”
Dad looked at me.
I put her on speaker.
“What is it?”
“A consulting designation.”
“For what?”
“That’s where it gets strange.”
She was typing as she spoke.
“Project Northbridge appears in old company calendar entries, expense notes, and draft invoices. But there’s no client.”
“What do you mean no client?”
“No signed client. No external contract. No delivered work product.”
Dad leaned closer.
“Internal project?”
“That’s what I thought.”
“Then?”
“Some expenses were paid to entities connected to Vivienne.”
I closed my eyes.
“How much?”
“Over fourteen months? Just under six hundred thousand.”
Dad muttered something under his breath.
“Any legitimate explanation?”
“Maybe. But I found a note attached to one invoice.”
“What note?”
Noelle read it.
“Family continuity arrangement.”
The kitchen went silent.
“Whose note?”
“Unknown. It was in an archived accounting comment.”
Dad looked at me.
“Continuity of what?”
“Noelle, send everything to Marcy.”
“Already did.”
“Good.”
“There’s more.”
Of course there was.
“What?”
“I found a recurring payment under Northbridge.”
“To whom?”
“An assisted-living management company.”
I frowned.
“Why would Vale pay an assisted-living company?”
“No idea.”
“Can you identify the resident?”
“Not yet.”
Dad’s expression changed.
“Vivienne’s parents?”
“Both died years ago.”
“Other family?”
“I don’t know.”
Noelle said, “The account references initials. E.V.”
I looked at Dad.
He frowned.
“Anyone?”
“No.”
Then I remembered something.
At a Christmas dinner two years earlier, Camille had once joked that Vivienne had “buried every inconvenient relative in Connecticut.”
Everyone laughed.
I had assumed she meant emotionally.
Now I was less certain.
“Where is the facility?”
Noelle answered.
“Connecticut.”
My father stopped eating.
“Find out legally,” he said.
“I will.”
After the call, he looked at me.
“You’re thinking of something.”
I told him.
He listened.
“Could be nothing.”
“I know.”
“Could be a relative.”
“I know.”
“You are not going there.”
“I didn’t say I was.”
“You thought it.”
I gave him a tired look.
He pointed his fork at me.
“You got that face from your mother.”
“What face?”
“The one that says warning accepted and ignored.”
I almost smiled.
The next morning, Marcy had the answer.
E.V. was Eleanor Vale.
Adrian’s grandmother.
I stared at the name.
“Adrian told me his grandmother died when he was a teenager.”
Marcy looked up from the file.
“Then he lied.”
We were in her office again.
Noelle sat beside me.
Dad was on speaker from his own office.
“Is Eleanor alive?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“How old?”
“Eighty-four.”
“Why would Adrian tell me she was dead?”
“No idea.”
“Does Vivienne visit?”
Marcy turned a page.
“Payments are arranged through a management entity.”
“Not what I asked.”
“No visitor records yet.”
Dad’s voice came through the speaker.
“Why is the company paying?”
“That’s more interesting.”
Marcy placed another document before me.
“The care arrangement predates Vale Strategic Holdings.”
I looked at her.
“Then why is the company involved?”
“Because payments were transferred to Vale’s accounts eighteen months after the company was founded.”
“Who authorized that?”
She pointed.
Adrian Vale.
My pulse slowed instead of quickening.
That happened when anger became too large.
“So investors have been paying for his grandmother’s care.”
“Possibly.”
“Why hide her existence?”
“Unknown.”
Noelle spoke quietly.
“Maybe the facility is expensive and he was embarrassed.”
I shook my head.
“Adrian is embarrassed by many things. He doesn’t erase people.”
Then I remembered Julian.
Actually, yes.
He did.
“Can I contact Eleanor?”
Marcy’s expression sharpened.
“Not yet.”
“Why?”
“Because we don’t know her condition.”
“Medical?”
“Could be cognitive. Could be physical. Could be completely competent.”
“I want to know.”
“I know.”
“Legally.”
“Yes.”
She closed the file.
“We’ll find out.”
That afternoon, Adrian appeared outside my office.
Not inside.
Security called first.
“He says he has no appointment.”
“Don’t send him up.”
“He says he’ll wait.”
“Then he can wait.”
An hour passed.
He remained downstairs.
At six, I left through the front lobby.
He stood when he saw me.
People moved around us.
Employees.
Visitors.
Security.
Exactly the kind of room Julian would have approved of.
“Mara.”
I stopped several feet away.
“You need an appointment now.”
“I need five minutes.”
“You have two.”
His face looked tired.
Not theatrically tired.
Actually tired.
For one dangerous second, sympathy moved through me.
Then I remembered the marital agreement.
“What is Eleanor Vale?”
His entire body changed.
Not much.
A stillness.
“What?”
“Your grandmother.”
His eyes narrowed.
“Who told you?”
“You told me she was dead.”
“She is dead to me.”
The cruelty of the sentence shocked me.
“What did she do?”
“Nothing you need to know.”
“Your company pays for her care.”
His jaw tightened.
“Stay out of that.”
“That’s investor money.”
“No, it isn’t.”
“Then whose?”
“Mine.”
“The company isn’t you.”
He stepped closer.
Security shifted near the desk.
Adrian noticed and stopped.
“You don’t understand my family.”
“That seems increasingly intentional.”
He looked away.
For a moment, I saw something I had never seen before.
Fear.
Not fear of money.
Not fear of investors.
Something older.
“What happened with Eleanor?”
His voice dropped.
“She tried to destroy my mother.”
“How?”
“I said stay out of it.”
“Then stop making strangers pay for it.”
He flinched.
That sentence reached him.
Good.
“What is Northbridge?”
His face went blank.
The change was immediate.
Too immediate.
“What?”
“You know exactly what I said.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“That’s the first thing you’ve said today that I know is a lie.”
“Mara.”
“Project Northbridge.”
His eyes moved past me toward the elevator.
“You need to stop digging.”
“Why?”
“Because you don’t know what you’re going to uncover.”
“That sounds like a threat.”
“It’s a warning.”
“From you?”
“From someone who once cared what happened to you.”
The words landed harder than they should have.
Once cared.
As though my questions had canceled his love.
I looked at him.
“If you cared, tell me the truth.”
He said nothing.
I walked toward the exit.
Behind me, he called, “Eleanor is not innocent.”
I turned.
“Of what?”
He stared at me for several seconds.
Then said quietly, “Ask Julian why he really left.”
I watched him.
“He already told me.”
“No.”
Adrian shook his head.
“He told you the version where he’s the victim.”
“What’s the other version?”
“You want truth?”
“Yes.”
“Then ask Julian who forged my signature first.”
My stomach tightened.
Adrian turned and walked away.
That night, I called Julian.
He answered immediately.
I did not say hello.
“Did you ever forge Adrian’s signature?”
Silence.
Longer than any silence Adrian had given me.
“Julian?”
“Yes.”
The word was barely audible.
My fingers tightened around the phone.
“Yes what?”
“Yes, I signed his name once.”
I closed my eyes.
“You told me Adrian framed you.”
“He did.”
“You left this out.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because I knew what it would sound like.”
“It sounds like you lied to me.”
“I omitted something.”
“That is not better.”
“No.”
I stood from the chair.
“What did you sign?”
“A transfer authorization.”
My stomach dropped.
“How much?”
“Thirty thousand.”
“To whom?”
“Myself.”
I said nothing.
Julian’s breathing was audible.
“Mara, listen.”
“Why?”
“Because if you stop now, Adrian wins exactly the way he won before.”
“By telling the truth?”
“No.”
Julian’s voice hardened for the first time.
“By finding the one thing I did wrong and using it to bury everything he did afterward.”
That sentence stopped me.
“What happened?”
“I’ll show you.”
“No more selective truth.”
“I know.”
“No more choosing what I deserve to hear.”
“I know.”
“If you lie again, I’m done.”
“I understand.”
“Tomorrow morning.”
“Yes.”
I ended the call.
Then I sat in silence.
Julian had lied.
Adrian had lied.
Vivienne had lied.
Camille, perhaps, had lied too.
The people around Vale Strategic Holdings seemed to treat truth as something to release strategically.
For the first time since all of this began, I understood that choosing between Adrian’s story and Julian’s story would be another mistake.
I did not need either man’s version.
I needed records.
And somewhere inside Project Northbridge was the reason Adrian had paid for a living grandmother while telling the woman he planned to marry that she had been dead for years.
Click here to continue reading: PART 7: Julian Admitted the Crime Adrian Used Against Him, Then Showed Me Why One Forged Signature Was Only the Beginning
Seven Casual Words at a Family Lunch Made Me Question Every Promise Adrian Had Ever Made
Part 6 of 24
