Chapter 17 - The Beach House
The Carter beach house sat on a cliff forty miles north of Malibu.
I had not been there since my father’s funeral.
I parked half a mile away.
Olivia, Mason, and Malcolm ignored my order to stay behind.
“Family trait,” Olivia said. “Nobody listens to you.”
Under any other circumstances, I might have laughed.
We approached through the side trail.
Bell’s car was behind the garage.
The front door was unlocked.
Inside, the house was silent.
Then Sophie screamed from downstairs.
I ran.
Olivia grabbed my shoulder.
“Trap.”
“I know.”
I went anyway.
The basement door opened into a concrete room I had never seen.
Sophie sat in a chair near the wall.
Vanessa stood beside her.
Bell held a gun.
“Ledger,” he said.
I held up the black book.
“Let Sophie walk to me.”
Bell laughed.
“You’re not negotiating.”
Vanessa looked terrible. Her hair was loose, her makeup streaked, one hand shaking.
Sophie stared at me.
“Daddy.”
“I’m here.”
Vanessa whispered, “Give him the ledger.”
Bell turned on her.
“Shut up.”
That surprised me.
Vanessa had lost control too.
I tossed the ledger onto the floor between us.
Bell stepped toward it.
Malcolm killed the basement lights from upstairs.
Everything happened at once.
Olivia rushed Sophie.
Bell fired.
The shot struck concrete.
I hit him from the side.
Mason tackled Vanessa when she reached for the ledger.
Sophie screamed.
I heard Olivia shouting that she had her.
Then the lights came back.
Bell was on the floor beneath me.
His gun lay six feet away.
Vanessa was crying beside the wall.
Mason had the ledger.
And Sophie was in Olivia’s arms.
For one second, I thought it was over.
Then Vanessa laughed.
Not loudly.
Just enough to make us look at her.
“You still think this was Lucas’s plan.”
I stood.
“Save it.”
“No, Ethan. Look at the ledger.”
Mason opened it.
Several pages had been cut out.
Vanessa smiled through tears.
“Your father gave Bell the original reserve map years ago. That book is only the copy Eleanor was supposed to find.”
Olivia stared at her.
“Why kidnap Sophie?”
Vanessa looked at Sophie.
“Because the money was never the most valuable thing your father hid.”
My skin went cold.
“What did he hide?”
Bell suddenly laughed from the floor.
Vanessa answered first.
“A controlling share agreement.”
Lucas had said Sophie’s trust held thirty-one percent of the company.
Vanessa shook her head.
“That’s what everyone believes.”
She looked at me.
“Your father secretly transferred another eighteen percent into a second trust.”
“Whose?”
Her eyes moved to Sophie.
“Her mother’s.”
Olivia froze.
“I don’t have another trust.”
Vanessa smiled sadly.
“Not Olivia.”
After the police secured the beach house, Sophie refused to let go of Olivia.
I sat beside her on the stairs.
“Did Vanessa tell you anything while you were in the car?”
Sophie nodded.
“She said I was the key.”
“To what?”
“She said Grandpa made everybody fight over me.”
Olivia closed her eyes.
Then Sophie reached into her sock and pulled out a folded piece of paper.
“Vanessa gave me this when the police came.”
It was a handwritten note.
I did not recognize the handwriting.
It said:
ASK ETHAN WHY ROBERT NEVER ALLOWED A DNA TEST AFTER SOPHIE WAS BORN.
My stomach tightened.
Vanessa had just told us there was another trust tied to Sophie’s mother.
Now someone wanted us questioning who Sophie’s biological mother actually was.
The family fraud was no longer only financial.
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