Chapter 9
Ainsley did not ask Galen to forgive her.
That was the first intelligent thing she did.
They sat in separate chairs inside an interview room at the old medical facility while Detective Ruiz recorded everything.
Ainsley’s hands shook.
“My father wanted to confess after Celeste died.”
She looked at the table.
“He knew Dominic had ordered the brake sabotage.”
“Did your father participate?” Ruiz asked.
“No. Not in the murder.”
“In the fraud?”
“Yes.”
Ainsley swallowed.
“He hated himself by then.”
Galen listened without sympathy.
Harold Vale’s regret had arrived after years of corruption.
After Lorraine lost her life.
After Celeste lost hers.
Regret did not resurrect anyone.
Ainsley continued.
“He told Dominic he was going to federal investigators.”
“What happened?”
“Dominic came to our house.”
Her voice weakened.
“My father made Nolan and me go upstairs.”
“You stayed?”
“I went to the landing.”
Tears filled her eyes.
“I watched through the railing.”
Dominic and Harold argued.
Harold threatened to expose everything.
Dominic poured two drinks.
Only Harold drank.
Twenty minutes later, Harold collapsed.
Dominic called an ambulance himself.
A heart attack was declared.
Ainsley knew the truth.
“How?” Ruiz asked.
“I saw Dominic put something in the glass.”
“Why didn’t you report it?”
Ainsley laughed bitterly.
“Because I was a coward.”
Nolan was twenty-four then.
Ainsley twenty-seven.
Dominic showed them financial records carrying Harold’s signatures.
Then photographs proving he had followed both siblings.
He told them police would believe the disgraced Vale family had orchestrated everything.
Then he offered a bargain.
Stay quiet.
Help him retrieve Celeste’s evidence.
Live.
Ainsley accepted.
Over time, fear changed into something uglier.
Opportunity.
She began believing she deserved compensation for what her family lost.
Money.
Status.
Power.
Galen.
“I told myself you owed us.”
Galen’s face hardened.
“I owed you?”
“I know how it sounds.”
“It sounds insane.”
“It was.”
“You stalked my daughter.”
“Yes.”
“You entered my life under a lie.”
“Yes.”
“You tried to make Eira hate her own mother.”
Ainsley closed her eyes.
“Yes.”
“Dominic didn’t force you to do that.”
“No.”
“Then stop using him as an excuse.”
She looked at him.
“I’m not.”
Her voice cracked.
“I’m telling you how I became someone I hate.”
Galen stared at her.
“That is something you can explain to a judge.”
Ainsley nodded.
“I know.”
Ruiz asked about the rehearsal.
Why destroy the locket?
Ainsley explained that Dominic had learned from old correspondence that Celeste hid access information inside something belonging to Eira.
He didn’t know what.
Ainsley suspected the locket.
When she saw Eira wearing it during rehearsal, panic took over.
She tried to remove it.
Then Eira admitted knowing about the blue box.
Ainsley realized the entire scheme was unraveling.
“You could have walked away,” Galen said.
“Yes.”
“You could have told me.”
“Yes.”
“But instead you threatened a child.”
“Yes.”
Each answer made her smaller.
But Galen refused to comfort her.
Some guilt needed to hurt.
Ruiz then brought Lorraine into another room.
Galen saw his mother-in-law for the first time.
Really saw her.
He had known Celeste for eight years.
He had married her.
Loved her.
Buried her.
And all that time, her mother lived in hiding.
Lorraine stared at him.
“Galen.”
His throat closed.
“You knew me?”
“From photographs.”
“Celeste told you about me?”
“Everything.”
He shook his head.
“Not everything.”
Lorraine began crying.
“I’m sorry.”
He wanted to be angry.
He was angry.
But she looked like a woman who had already served a twenty-year sentence imposed by fear.
He sat opposite her.
“Did Celeste know she might die?”
Lorraine’s face crumpled.
“She knew there was danger.”
“Why didn’t she tell me?”
“She wanted proof first.”
“I would have protected her.”
“I know.”
“No, you don’t.”
Lorraine flinched.
Galen immediately regretted the sharpness.
But he continued.
“She was my wife.”
“And my daughter.”
The words stopped him.
Lorraine wiped her face.
“I begged her to tell you.”
Galen stared.
“She refused?”
“She said Dominic was too close to your family.”
That hurt because it was true.
Galen would have trusted Dominic.
He might have told him everything.
Celeste knew that.
“She was protecting me from my own trust.”
Lorraine nodded.
“Yes.”
Galen looked away.
“What happened the day she died?”
Lorraine told him everything.
She and Celeste drove toward the meeting point.
They noticed a dark SUV behind them.
At a gas station, Lorraine went inside.
Celeste saw the SUV pull in.
She panicked.
She drove away alone.
Intentionally.
“Why?”
“To draw them away from me.”
Lorraine cried.
“I ran outside. I called her. She answered.”
Galen stopped breathing.
“You spoke to her?”
“For about thirty seconds.”
“What did she say?”
Lorraine looked at him.
“She said, ‘Tell Galen I’m sorry I didn’t trust him with the truth.’”
Galen covered his mouth.
“And then?”
“She said, ‘Tell Eira her mommy chose her every second.’”
Tears streamed down Galen’s face.
Lorraine reached across the table but stopped before touching him.
“Then I heard her scream.”
Galen bowed his head.
“The brakes failed.”
“Yes.”
“Was she afraid?”
Lorraine cried.
“Yes.”
He closed his eyes.
He hated himself for asking.
But he needed the truth.
“Did she know she was going to die?”
“I don’t know.”
Lorraine’s voice broke.
“But her last words were your name.”
Galen cried silently.
For four years he had imagined Celeste alone.
Now he knew she had been fighting.
Protecting.
Trying to lead danger away from her mother.
Away from Eira.
Perhaps away from him.
When Galen finally returned to the secure house, Eira was awake.
It was nearly midnight.
She sat on the stairs waiting.
He frowned gently.
“You should be sleeping.”
“I waited.”
He lifted her.
“For me?”
She nodded.
“Did you find Mommy’s mommy?”
Galen smiled through exhausted eyes.
“Yes.”
“Is she nice?”
“I think so.”
“Can I see her?”
“Tomorrow.”
Eira touched the locket.
“Does she miss Mommy?”
“Very much.”
Eira thought about that.
Then whispered.
“We can miss her together.”
Galen hugged her.
Children sometimes found the simplest answer adults spent years avoiding.
The next morning, Lorraine met Eira.
There was no dramatic speech.
No perfect movie moment.
Eira stared at the elderly stranger.
Lorraine cried immediately.
Eira became uncomfortable.
Then hid behind Galen.
Lorraine laughed through her tears.
“Celeste did that too.”
Eira peeked out.
“When?”
“When she was little.”
“You knew Mommy when she was little?”
“I was her mommy.”
Eira’s eyes widened.
“You’re Mommy’s mommy?”
“Yes.”
Eira slowly came out from behind Galen.
“Then you’re my grandma.”
Lorraine broke.
She dropped to her knees.
Eira hugged her.
Bianca turned away and cried.
Even Galen couldn’t stop himself.
For several minutes, the case disappeared.
The murders disappeared.
Dominic disappeared.
There was only a child meeting a piece of her mother she thought had vanished forever.
Then Galen’s phone rang.
Ruiz.
He stepped into the hallway.
“We found Dominic.”
His body tensed.
“Where?”
“He contacted June.”
“Why?”
“He wants a trade.”
“For what?”
“Lorraine.”
Galen’s face went cold.
“What does he have?”
Ruiz was silent for half a beat.
Then:
“Nolan.”
Galen frowned.
“Nolan is in police custody.”
“He was.”
Galen’s blood ran cold.
“What happened?”
“The ambulance transporting him was intercepted.”
“How?”
“Someone posing as a county officer rerouted it.”
“Dominic.”
“Yes.”
Galen looked through the doorway.
Ainsley stood at the far end of the room with an officer.
She saw his face.
“What?”
Galen said nothing.
Ainsley approached.
“What happened?”
He stared at her.
“Dominic has Nolan.”
Her knees nearly buckled.
“No.”
“He wants Lorraine.”
Ainsley shook her head violently.
“No. You can’t give her to him.”
Lorraine heard.
She stood.
“What happened?”
Galen explained.
Lorraine’s expression became strangely calm.
“I’ll go.”
“No.”
“He wants me.”
“No.”
“He has already killed my daughter because of me.”
“Celeste died protecting you.”
Lorraine flinched.
Galen stepped closer.
“Do not make her sacrifice meaningless by handing yourself to him.”
Lorraine stared at him.
Then nodded slowly.
Ruiz arrived soon after.
Dominic had chosen a meeting location.
Not the shipyard.
Not another warehouse.
Moretti Manor.
The home Galen’s father built.
The house where Galen grew up.
It had been empty since Vittorio died.
Dominic knew every room.
Every hidden entrance.
Every weakness.
“He chose it deliberately,” Galen said.
Ruiz nodded.
“He wants control.”
Ainsley looked pale.
“He also wants something else.”
Everyone turned.
“What?”
She swallowed.
“There’s a vault beneath Vittorio’s study.”
Galen frowned.
“No, there isn’t.”
“Yes.”
“How would you know?”
“My father told me.”
Galen stared.
Ainsley continued.
“Dominic kept original financial records there years ago.”
Marcus shook his head.
“Why would Vittorio allow that?”
“He didn’t know.”
Galen remembered his father’s confusion.
His illness.
His trust in Dominic.
“What’s still in the vault?”
Ainsley whispered.
“Enough evidence to destroy people much more powerful than Dominic.”
Ruiz’s expression changed.
“Names?”
“Judges. Developers. Officials. Executives.”
Galen understood.
Dominic was not simply hiding from police.
He wanted leverage.
The manor contained his escape route.
Ainsley looked at him.
“And if he gets those records before you do, he can bargain his way out.”
Ruiz shook her head.
“Not out of murder.”
“Maybe not.”
Ainsley’s voice turned dark.
“But he can destroy half the people who would testify against him.”
Galen looked toward the window.
His childhood home.
His father’s secrets.
Celeste’s killer.
Everything was waiting in one place.
Then Eira walked into the hallway holding Lorraine’s hand.
“Daddy?”
Galen turned.
Eira looked worried.
“Are you leaving again?”
He crouched.
“Yes.”
She frowned.
“Because of bad Uncle Dom?”
Galen hesitated.
Then nodded.
Eira took off Celeste’s locket.
She placed it in his hand.
“Take Mommy.”
Galen’s eyes filled.
“She was brave.”
He closed his fingers around it.
“Yes.”
Eira looked serious.
“But come back.”
Galen kissed her forehead.
“I will.”
At Moretti Manor, Dominic Mercer waited inside the house where Galen once trusted him like family.
And somewhere beneath that house was a vault capable of exposing everything.
But when police finally reached the property, the front door was already open.
Nolan was tied to a chair in the entrance hall.
Alive.
Dominic was nowhere in sight.
On Nolan’s chest was a handwritten note.
Galen read it.
May you like
You spent four years looking at the wrong death.
Ask what really happened to your father.
