Chapter 9 - The Marriage Was a MissionSubtitle: My Husband Was Sent to Watch MeDaniel told me everything.
At least, he claimed he did.
Years earlier, my father, Thomas Vance, had investigated financial corruption involving several corporations.
Sterling Holdings was one of them.
My father discovered hidden accounts.
Shell companies.
Bribed officials.
Money laundering.
But before he could expose the entire network, he died.
The official cause was a heart attack.
I had always accepted it.
Daniel hadn't.
"My father believed your family still had the evidence," he said.
"And you were supposed to find it."
He nodded.
"So marrying me was your assignment."
"I started that way."
I stared at him.
"Started?"
"Then I fell in love with you."
I wanted to believe him.
That was the cruelest part.
Some part of me still wanted to.
"Where is the evidence?" I asked.
"I don't know."
"You must know something."
"My father searched your childhood home. Your father's office. Everything."
"Did he find anything?"
"No."
I looked at Victoria.
She was already thinking.
Then I remembered something.
My father's desk.
There was an old drawer he never let anyone open.
After his death, I had kept the key.
I'd forgotten it existed.
I called my brother.
He searched my father's belongings.
An hour later, I received a photograph.
The drawer.
Still locked.
I felt a strange chill.
"Where is it?"
"My uncle has it."
We drove there under police escort.
Inside the drawer was a leather-bound notebook.
My father's handwriting filled every page.
Names.
Dates.
Transactions.
And one sentence circled repeatedly:
THE STERLINGS DID NOT KILL ME.
THEY ARE AFRAID OF WHAT I FOUND.
I turned the page.
There was a list of initials.
Then one full name.
Richard Sterling.
Under it:
MASTER ACCOUNT 77B.
Victoria looked at me.
"That's an offshore account."
"Can we find it?"
"Maybe."
Mike was already calling investigators.
Then a loose paper fell from the notebook.
A hospital name.
St. Jude's Medical Center.
I stared.
"What?"
The paper was dated twenty-one years earlier.
My father had written:
If anything happens to me, look at St. Jude's.
I felt my pulse race.
Twenty-one years ago, St. Jude's had been the hospital where my father died.
The same hospital where my twins had just been born.
The same hospital where Patricia had accessed my records.
The same hospital where Karen had tried to steal Luna.
There was no way that was coincidence.
We returned to St. Jude's.
Mike contacted the hospital archives.
They found my father's old medical file.
One page was missing.
Someone had physically removed it.
Then the archivist found something else.
A handwritten notation:
TRANSFERRED TO PRIVATE STORAGE.
"Who authorized the transfer?" I asked.
The archivist looked at the signature.
Then turned pale.
"Richard Sterling."
My breath caught.
Twenty-one years ago.
My father knew.
Richard knew.
And somehow, St. Jude's was the place where their secret had begun.
Then the archivist whispered:
"Judge Vance, there's one more thing."
"What?"
"The missing page wasn't destroyed."
"Where is it?"
May you like
He pointed toward a locked cabinet.
"Your husband's family has been renting the storage room for twenty-one years."
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