Chapter 16 - The Message He ForgotCamille remembered the old phone in a kitchen drawer.
It had stopped charging more than a year earlier.
She nearly threw it away twice.
Instead, her attorney sent it to a forensic examiner.
The device turned on.
And Derek’s worst messages were still there.
Not romantic ones.
Operational ones.
Use the invoice description I sent.
Never write “distribution” in email.
If Allison asks, say your firm did occupancy planning.
Do not mention Alder Row to Mara.
Then one message from before the affair:
If Keira or anyone at St. Vincent asks, just say you’re family. No need to complicate it.
Months later:
They already think you’re my wife. Leave it.
And later still:
Actually easier this way.
Camille stared at the screen.
“He trained the lie.”
Allison stood beside Owen.
“He normalized it.”
The “wife” story had not been necessary for hospital access.
It had become part of Derek’s private fantasy.
Or perhaps his rehearsal for a future he planned to force into existence.
Another message mattered more financially.
Derek wrote:
Once W closes, A gets 250. You get your remaining catch-up. Then I move out.
Camille replied:
And Allison?
Derek:
She’ll have enough money to stop fighting.
Allison read the line slowly.
Enough money to stop fighting.
Derek had fundamentally misunderstood her.
He thought everyone had a number.
Her father.
Camille.
Stoneharbor.
Allison.
That belief may have been his greatest weakness.
Owen used the phone to tie Derek directly to invoice language.
Mara used it to strengthen the company’s civil claims.
Investigators used it to expand their inquiry.
And Camille used it to stop telling herself the affair was a separate mistake.
It had been woven into the same system of secrecy.
She met Allison outside the office afterward.
“I need to say something.”
Allison waited.
“I don’t expect us to be sisters again.”
Allison looked away.
“But if we never are, I want you to know I understand why.”
“You understand now.”
“Yes.”
“That’s different from having understood when it mattered.”
Camille nodded.
“I know.”
Allison was tired of those two words.
But Camille continued.
“I also know I spent years making you responsible for my feelings.”
That caught Allison’s attention.
“If Dad praised you, I blamed you. If my business failed, I hid it until you rescued me. If I felt small beside you, I decided you were making me small.”
Allison said nothing.
Camille’s voice shook.
“Derek didn’t invent that.”
“No.”
“He just used it.”
“Yes.”
“I’m sorry.”
Allison looked at her younger sister.
For the first time, she saw not the child she had raised after their mother’s early death.
Not the woman on Derek’s lap.
Both.
That made forgiveness harder, not easier.
Because Camille was not one thing.
Neither was Allison.
“I made mistakes too,” Allison said.
Camille looked shocked.
“Not like yours.”
“Allison—”
“I treated helping you like a job.”
Camille’s eyes filled.
“I fixed things before asking what you needed.”
“That doesn’t excuse me.”
“I didn’t say it did.”
They stood quietly.
Two truths could exist without canceling each other.
Allison had contributed to distance.
Camille had chosen betrayal.
Derek had exploited both.
Owen appeared at the doorway.
“Allison.”
She turned.
“What?”
“Stoneharbor produced documents in response to our preservation request.”
Mara stood behind him holding a printed email.
Allison read it.
Alder Row’s $250,000 fee was not the only promised payment.
There was a second agreement.
A “success bonus.”
Payable personally to Derek if Wellington sold below a certain timetable.
Amount:
$400,000.
Allison stared.
“Why would Stoneharbor pay more for a faster closing?”
Owen answered.
“Because they had another buyer lined up.”
“For what?”
“The property.”
Allison frowned.
“They were going to flip it?”
“Yes.”
“How much?”
Owen handed her another page.
Stoneharbor had a draft resale agreement.
$17.3 million.
Derek intended to sell Allison’s building for $12.4 million.
Then Stoneharbor planned to resell it for nearly five million more.
Camille whispered, “He wasn’t just stealing from the company.”
Allison’s eyes remained on the number.
May you like
“No.”
“He was selling our father’s legacy at a discount so everyone except us could profit.”
Related Stories
