Chapter 14
“And if I had not come tonight?”
“We would have found another way.”
“Would you?”
His silence was answer enough.
I closed the folder.
“I want copies of everything.”
“You’ll have them.”
“I want to meet the attorney who found the discrepancy.”
“You will.”
“And I want to know whether Dominic knew.”
Richard’s expression tightened.
“That question may not have a simple answer.”
“I don’t need a simple answer.”
Before he could respond, my phone vibrated in my clutch.
The screen showed an unfamiliar number.
I almost ignored it.
Then a second message appeared.
Mrs. Vale, my name is Daniel Shaw. I am Meredith Shaw’s son. I believe you have just been shown documents bearing your mother’s signature.
I read the message twice.
A third arrived.
My mother left instructions that I contact you if anything happened to her files. There is something you need to see before you speak to Dominic.
I lifted my eyes to Richard.
“Do you know a Daniel Shaw?”
His face changed.
“Meredith’s son?”
I nodded and handed him the phone.
He read the messages, then looked back at me.
“Call him.”
My thumb hovered over the screen.
Another message appeared.
The file is not at the law office. It is in the house she shared with my father. And it contains a letter addressed to you, dated three days before her death.
I pressed call.
The ballroom music continued behind us, elegant and steady, while the phone rang against my ear.
On the fourth ring, a man answered.
“Mrs. Vale?”
“Yes.”
“This is Daniel Shaw. I’m sorry to contact you this way.”
“Why did your mother leave me a letter?”
There was a pause.
“Because she believed someone had used your name without your permission.”
My fingers tightened around the phone.
“Who?”
“I don’t know. She never told me everything. But she was frightened enough to put the file somewhere no one from the firm could access.”
“Where is it?”
“At my parents’ house in Wilmette.”
“Can I see it tonight?”
Another pause, longer this time.
“Yes. But there is something else.”
“What?”
“When my mother died, a man came to the house asking for the same file.”
“Who was he?”
Daniel’s voice lowered.
“He said he worked for Vale Development Group.”
I looked across the ballroom toward the empty space where Dominic had been standing.
“Did you see him?”
“No. My father did.”