Rebecca denied it.
Not cautiously.
Not thoughtfully.
Immediately.
“No.”
Grant placed Arthur’s opened letter on the table.
Rebecca pushed it away.
“No.”
“Arthur wrote—”
“I know what he wrote.”
“Then explain why he was wrong.”
“Because I never slept with Victor Shaw.”
Marcus said nothing.
That was worse.
I looked at Rebecca.
“Never?”
“Never.”
“You knew him.”
“Of course. He worked for my father.”
“Were you alone with him?”
“Sometimes.”
“Did he ever pursue you?”
Rebecca’s hesitation was small.
But I saw it.
“Yes.”
Marcus looked at her.
“You never told me.”
“It didn’t matter.”
“It matters now.”
Rebecca stood.
“Victor flirted with every woman he met. I rejected him.”
“Arthur believed otherwise.”
“Arthur believed whatever allowed him to control people.”
That was also true.
Grant examined the letter.
“Could Arthur have been intentionally lying?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
Marcus finally spoke.
“There’s a date problem.”
He had been reading the hospital archive on his tablet.
“What date?”
“My employment records.”
The room quieted.
Marcus had met Rebecca through Arthur’s company.
That was the story both told.
Except bank records showed Marcus’s first meeting with Arthur’s firm occurred after Rebecca was already pregnant.
Rebecca stared at him.
“That can’t be right.”
Marcus turned the screen.
“My first recorded meeting was October seventeenth.”
I was born in May.
If the pregnancy had been full term, conception was around the previous August.
“How did you meet?”
Rebecca sat down.
“At a restaurant.”
“Through Arthur?”
“I thought so.”
Marcus remembered differently.
A man introduced them at a charity dinner.
Victor Shaw.
The room went still.
Victor had introduced Marcus to Rebecca.
Then later arranged for Marcus to work with Arthur’s bank accounts.
“That was deliberate,” Grant said.
Rebecca looked sick.
Victor had placed Marcus into her life after she was already pregnant.
“Did you know you were pregnant when you met Marcus?”
“No.”
“Did you have any relationship immediately before him?”
“No.”
Grant did not move on.
“Rebecca.”
“No consensual relationship.”
The word changed everything.
Marcus stood.
I felt cold.
Grant’s voice softened but remained precise.
“Was there an incident involving Victor?”
Rebecca looked toward the window.
“Once.”
She had never told anyone.
Not Marcus.
Not Arthur.
Not police.
After a company event, Victor offered to drive her home.
She remembered drinking wine.
She remembered entering his car.
Then almost nothing until morning.
She woke in a guest room at Arthur’s Greenwich house.
Her dress was partly removed.
Victor said she had become sick.
She believed him because believing him was easier.
Weeks later, Victor introduced Marcus to her.
They fell in love quickly.
Then she discovered the pregnancy.
“I assumed Marcus was the father because I wanted him to be.”
Marcus looked devastated.
“You should have told me.”
“I barely admitted it to myself.”
I could not speak.
There are discoveries that feel like answers.
This did not.
It felt like another theft.
Victor had possibly assaulted Rebecca.
Then positioned Marcus beside her.
Why?
Grant asked the same question.
Rebecca didn’t know.
Marcus did.
“Cover.”
If Rebecca became pregnant, Marcus would appear to be the father.
Victor protected himself.
Arthur later learned the truth somehow.
That explained the letter.
It also explained why Arthur destroyed Marcus’s career.
Not because he hated Marcus.
Because he believed Marcus had been part of Victor’s plan.
“Arthur thought you knew,” Rebecca said.
Marcus stared at the table.
“He ruined me because he thought I helped Victor.”
Arthur’s cruelty had still been cruelty.
But now its motive changed.
Grant asked whether Victor could have known I was biologically his.
“Probably,” Rebecca whispered.
“Did he ever contact you about Emily?”
“Never.”
Robert, brought in again, remembered something.
Victor attended my first birthday party.
I had seen photographs.
A tall dark-haired man near the edge of the garden.
I never knew who he was.
He also visited the Wilson house several times during my early childhood.
Linda said he was handling estate matters.
Arthur eventually banned him.
“Why?”
Robert had never been told.
Now we could guess.
Victor knew.
Arthur knew.
Maybe Linda knew.
And Charles certainly learned eventually.
My phone vibrated.
Khloe.
She had found the missing second page of Teresa Vale’s letter.
Not on Jackson’s laptop.
In an email draft synchronized to his phone backup.
Grant opened it.
Teresa had written:
Arthur discovered Victor was Emily’s father after comparing hospital blood records. Victor begged him not to expose the truth. Charles learned next. That was when the money started moving.
Below that:
Victor wanted to create a trust for Emily himself. Charles stopped him.
I looked at Rebecca.
“Victor tried to leave me money?”
Apparently.
According to Teresa, Victor intended to transfer his interest in several Vale family assets to me.
Charles believed those assets belonged to him as Thomas Vale’s elder son.
Victor disagreed.
The brothers fought.
Then Victor died in the boat fire.
Under Charles’s identity.
“What if it wasn’t an accident?” I asked.
Grant’s expression told me she was already there.
Charles had motive.
Kill Victor.
Let the body be identified as Charles.
Then assume Victor’s identity.
Control Victor’s legal authority.
Prevent assets transferring to me.
It was horrifyingly efficient.
Rebecca whispered, “He practiced on Victor before he tried it on me.”
Two boat explosions.
Two identity manipulations.
One successful death.
One failed.
Grant reopened the old Maine investigation.
Photographs of the recovered body existed.
Dental records had supposedly confirmed Charles Shaw.
Those dental records came from a dentist who later admitted insurance fraud in an unrelated case.
Charles may have supplied Victor’s identification with his own dental file reversed—or fabricated the comparison entirely.
“We need DNA from the remains.”
The body had been cremated.
Of course.
But the medical examiner retained tissue samples.
A request went out.
Meanwhile, Charles had Arthur’s blood sample.
Why steal it now?
“If Arthur’s letter already identifies Victor as my father, Charles would want to disprove it.”
Marcus nodded.
“He could manipulate DNA results.”
“Again.”
“Or create a competing test.”
Grant warned us not to accept any privately produced result.
Only samples collected under controlled conditions would matter.
Then the hospital archive delivered something unexpected.
My newborn blood card still existed.
A tiny dried sample collected after birth.
It could establish my DNA independently.
Rebecca consented to testing.
Marcus did too, though Arthur’s letter now made his paternity unlikely.
Robert offered.
Jackson’s sample was already available.
Investigators requested preserved tissue from the presumed Charles Shaw body.
If it was actually Victor, the comparison could establish my biological father conclusively.
For the first time, science might cut through decades of paper lies.
While we waited, Linda requested another interview.
This time she asked for Rebecca too.
Grant allowed it under supervision.
Linda looked worse than before.
Her bruising had darkened.
When Rebecca entered, Linda stared at her for a long time.
“You knew about Victor?”
Rebecca said nothing.
Linda interpreted the silence.
“Oh.”
“What did you know?” Grant asked.
Linda looked at me.
“Victor told me Emily was his daughter.”
“When?”
“After Arthur died.”
“Why would he tell you?”
“Because he wanted access to her.”
Rebecca stepped forward.
“What kind of access?”
“Financial.”
My stomach tightened.
Victor had planned to create assets for me.
But perhaps not purely from guilt.
Linda said Victor believed placing assets in my name could shield them from Charles.
“He wanted me to help.”
“Did you?”
“At first.”
There it was.
Another piece.
Some accounts opened under my identity had originally been created to protect Victor’s assets from Charles.
Then Linda realized I did not know they existed.
She began using them herself.
“You stole from Victor too.”
Linda gave a tired smile.
“Victor stole from everyone.”
“What happened between Victor and Charles?”
“Victor wanted out.”
“Out of what?”
“Their fraud.”
For years, the brothers had manipulated Arthur’s businesses.
Charles handled accounting.
Victor handled legal structures.
When Victor learned I was his daughter, he began redirecting his share toward me.
Charles considered it betrayal.
“He threatened Victor.”
“When?”
“Before the boat accident.”
“Did you warn him?”
“No.”
“Why?”
Linda looked away.
“Because Victor threatened to tell Robert about our affair.”
Rebecca stared.
“So you let Charles kill him.”
“I didn’t know Charles would kill him.”
“You knew enough.”
Linda started crying.
Rebecca did not soften.
Grant asked about Teresa.
Linda’s tears stopped.
“She knows too much.”
“Where is she?”
“With Jackson.”
“Voluntarily?”
“I don’t know.”
“Why did Jackson pay her?”
“To find Victor’s original documents.”
“Did she?”
“Yes.”
“What documents?”
“His will.”
Victor had written a will months before his death.
Everything he personally controlled was left to one person.
Me.
Charles had spent ten years pretending to be Victor partly because Victor’s legal death would trigger that will.
If Victor officially died, assets passed to me.
If Victor remained legally alive, Charles could continue controlling them.
That explained the identity switch perfectly.
Charles needed Victor dead physically but alive legally.
“What assets?”
Linda whispered, “More than Arthur’s trust.”
“How much?”
“I don’t know.”
“Estimate.”
“Maybe sixty million.”
I stopped processing numbers.
Forty-six million in Arthur-related assets.
Potentially sixty million tied to Victor.
This was no longer about a house.
It was a private war over fortunes built before I was born.
Grant asked where Victor’s will was.
“Teresa had a copy.”
“Why Teresa?”
“She witnessed it.”
That explained Jackson’s payments.
He needed her.
Maybe Charles did too.
Grant ordered Teresa treated as a potential endangered witness.
Then a message arrived on my phone.
Unknown number.
A photograph.
Teresa sat in a chair in an unfamiliar room.
Alive.
Jackson stood behind her.
No visible weapon.
No obvious restraints.
Then a text.
EMILY, STOP LETTING EVERYONE ELSE TELL YOU MY STORY.
A second message.
COME ALONE AND I’LL GIVE YOU VICTOR’S WILL.
Grant took my phone.
Another message arrived before she could respond.
ASK REBECCA WHAT SHE DID THE NIGHT VICTOR DIED.
Rebecca’s face changed when she read it.
I saw fear.
Not confusion.
Fear.
“What did you do?”
She shook her head.
“Nothing.”
“Rebecca.”
“I wasn’t there.”
Jackson sent one final photograph.
A marina receipt.
Date: the night Victor died.
Customer signature:
Rebecca Wilson.
My biological mother had been three miles from Victor’s fatal boat fire.
And she had never mentioned it.
Click here to continue reading: PART 12: Rebecca’s Marina Receipt Explained Victor’s Last Night, but Jackson’s Offer Forced Me to Choose Between the Will and a Living Witness
The Morning After My Brother’s Wedding, One Missing Number Turned Every Family Favor I Had Ever Made Into Evidence
Part 11 of 24
