Chapter 5 – THE SECRET BENEATH THE FLOORBOARDS
The battered leather journal looked so small in Olivia’s hands, yet it possessed the gravitational pull of a black hole.
Peter stared at the book, all the color instantly draining from his face. His arrogance shattered, replaced by a raw, primal terror.
“Give that to me,” Peter demanded, his voice trembling. He took a step forward, but Marco’s massive hand slammed into his chest, stopping him dead in his tracks.
“What is it?” I asked, my voice barely a whisper. I reached out and gently took the journal from my daughter. The leather was soft, worn from years of handling. I recognized it immediately. It was the diary my mother kept on her nightstand, the one she wrote in every evening before bed.
“Open it, Mom,” Olivia said, her voice cracking. “Look at the dates.”
I flipped the cover open. The handwriting was unmistakably my mother’s—neat, slanted cursive. But it wasn’t a diary of her daily thoughts or gardening notes.
It was a ledger.
August 14th, 2018. Peter transferred $14,000 from my checking account to a shell company in the Cayman Islands. He thinks I don’t check the statements. He thinks I am getting senile.
My breath hitched. I turned the page.
November 2nd, 2019. He took another $45,000 against the house equity. I confronted him. He threatened to tell Catherine I was losing my mind. He knows how fragile she is. He knows she would believe him.
I kept flipping, the tears blurring my vision. Pages and pages of meticulous notes, bank routing numbers, and exact timestamps. My mother had tracked every single cent Peter had stolen from her over the last eight years. The same eight years he had been sleeping with Eleanor Vance.
“She knew,” I choked out, looking up at Peter. “She knew you were stealing from her.”
Peter shook his head frantically. “She was crazy, Catherine! She was paranoid! None of that is real. It’s the ramblings of a dying old woman.”
“Then why does she have the exact routing numbers for Eleanor’s firm listed on page forty?” Dante asked. He had been reading over my shoulder, his dark eyes tracking the numbers with cold precision. “Looks like she tracked a $200,000 wire fraud directly to your mistress’s corporate account.”
Eleanor cursed under her breath. “It’s circumstantial. A diary won’t hold up in court without the actual bank records.”
“Keep reading, Mom,” Olivia urged, her hand gripping my arm tight. “Read the very last page. The entry from the day before she died.”
My hands shook as I turned to the back of the book. The handwriting here was weaker, shakier, as if it had taken immense effort to hold the pen.
May 12th.I am so tired. My heart is failing, but not from the disease. It’s the tea. Peter brings me chamomile tea every night to help me sleep. I tasted the chalk in it last night. I didn’t drink it. But my chest burns today. He is crushing my digitalis pills. He is trying to induce a heart attack before I can change the trust. If I die suddenly… do not let Peter near my daughter. He has been poisoning me.
The journal slipped from my fingers and hit the floor with a dull thud.
The ballroom was entirely silent, save for the sound of my own ragged breathing.
My mother didn’t just die of congestive heart failure.
He killed her.
“No,” I gasped, stepping backward. “No, no, no…”
Dante caught me as my knees buckled. His strong arms wrapped around my waist, keeping me upright. “I’ve got you,” he whispered fiercely. “I’ve got you, Catherine. Breathe.”
Peter was hyperventilating. “It’s a lie! She was a crazy old bat! She was just trying to ruin my life!”
Dante looked up, his eyes burning with a lethal fire. He looked at Marco. “Call the police. Not for fraud. For murder.”
Eleanor realized instantly that the ship was sinking. She backed away from Peter, her face a mask of self-preservation. “I had nothing to do with that,” she said loudly, making sure everyone in the room heard her. “I knew about the money, but I did not know about the pills. He acted alone.”
“Shut up!” Peter screamed at her. “You told me we needed her out of the way! You gave me the idea!”
“I have security cameras in my home, Peter,” Eleanor shot back, her eyes narrowing. “I have footage from three months ago showing you taking the digitalis from my deceased husband’s medicine cabinet. I kept the footage. As leverage. You go down for this alone.”
Peter stared at her, the ultimate betrayal registering on his face. He was trapped. There was no Swiss flight. There was no twelve million dollars. There was only a murder charge waiting for him.
He looked at me. Then at Olivia.
And then, with terrifying speed, Peter reached inside his charcoal suit jacket.
A collective gasp echoed through the room.
He pulled out a small, black handgun.
He didn’t aim it at Dante. He didn’t aim it at Eleanor.
He aimed it directly at my chest.
