Chapter 14 - Anna and Gerald Were Never PartnersPolice were called.
Gerald’s phone went straight to voicemail.
His car was captured leaving the mansion at 12:18 a.m.
By 2:00, officers discovered it abandoned at the White Plains train station.
No sign of Gerald.
Michael paced the study.
“He took the ledger.”
Rebecca shook her head.
“A copy of a ledger.”
Michael stopped.
Rebecca opened her briefcase.
“I scanned every page before the meeting.”
For the first time in days, Rachel smiled.
“Remind me never to lie to you.”
Rebecca almost smiled back.
Then Rachel’s phone buzzed.
A text from Anna.
I heard Gerald disappeared.
Rachel stared.
Nobody had publicly announced it.
She typed:
How?
Three dots appeared.
Then disappeared.
Another message came.
Be careful. He is more dangerous than you think.
Rachel showed Rebecca.
“Don’t answer again,” Rebecca said.
Michael looked over her shoulder.
“Anna knows where he is.”
“Maybe.”
Rachel disagreed.
“No. She wants us to think she knows.”
She studied the wording.
Be careful.
Anna had spent months presenting herself as victim.
Now she was repositioning herself as ally.
Rachel understood why.
Gerald had become the easier villain.
If Anna helped expose him, perhaps everyone would overlook what she had done.
Rachel typed anyway.
You wanted access to the mansion because Gerald asked you to find documents.
The response came quickly.
Wrong.
Rachel waited.
Then:
Gerald wanted me to find documents because I already had access to the mansion.
Rachel frowned.
That contradicted what Gerald had claimed.
She typed:
He said he helped you get hired.
Anna replied:
Of course he did.
A second message.
He lies when he’s scared.
Then Anna sent a photograph.
A screenshot of an email.
FROM: Gerald Mason
TO: Anna Bell
I know who you are. Leave the Whitmore household immediately or I will make certain the police receive everything I have regarding Greenwich.
Dated three months earlier.
Rachel stared.
If authentic, Gerald hadn’t helped Anna get hired.
He discovered her afterward and tried to force her out.
Michael sat beside Rachel.
“So Gerald lied.”
Rebecca raised a hand.
“Or Anna fabricated the email.”
Again.
Every piece of evidence produced two possibilities.
Rachel was beginning to understand why people before her had lost their minds.
Anna didn’t need perfect lies.
She only needed enough contradictory truths that nobody knew which reality to trust.
Rachel typed:
What did you want from Gerald?
Anna’s answer came slowly.
The truth about my mother.
Rachel:
You already knew Thomas was your father.
Long pause.
Then:
Biology wasn’t the truth I wanted.
Rachel read the sentence twice.
Suddenly she understood.
Anna never truly cared whether Richard was her biological father.
Richard had controlled her mother’s life anyway.
His affair.
The theft accusation.
The settlement.
The shame.
The medical money offered years later through Gerald.
To Anna, blood was secondary.
She wanted acknowledgment.
Punishment.
Rachel typed:
You could have exposed what Richard did without destroying my marriage.
Anna responded immediately.
Your marriage was already weak.
Rachel’s jaw tightened.
Anna continued.
I whispered one sentence. You hit me.
Another.
I cried. Michael hit you.
Another.
I didn’t create those choices.
Rachel felt anger burn through her.
Manipulation disguised as philosophy.
Rachel typed:
You spent months engineering those choices.
Anna:
And it worked.
There it was.
Not quite a confession.
But close.
Rachel screenshot the exchange.
Then Anna sent one final message.
Ask Michael why Gerald was paying me.
Rachel looked at Michael.
He frowned.
“We already know Gerald didn’t pay her. I did.”
Rachel shook her head.
“Maybe not those payments.”
Rebecca began tracing accounts associated with Gerald’s firm.
By sunrise, she found them.
Four transfers to a shell company registered in Delaware.
Total:
$312,000.
Beneficiary records connected the company to Anna Bell.
Michael stared at the figure.
“She was blackmailing him.”
Rachel wasn’t sure.
The first payment was eighteen months old.
Long before Anna entered the Whitmore mansion.
Rebecca found corresponding dates.
One occurred days after Anna obtained Richard’s financial ledgers.
Another after she contacted Michael’s family about paternity.
A third six months later.
The last transfer stopped shortly before Anna applied to work at the mansion.
Rachel saw the pattern.
“He paid until she asked for something he couldn’t give.”
Michael looked at her.
“Access.”
“Maybe.”
Then Rebecca opened another file.
The shell company had made payments of its own.
Private investigators.
Background-search firms.
Property-record services.
And one Manhattan cybersecurity consultant.
Rachel leaned closer.
“What was she investigating?”
Rebecca scrolled.
Most names were obvious.
Richard Whitmore.
Gerald Mason.
Thomas Reed.
Michael Whitmore.
Then another name appeared repeatedly.
Rachel Hayes Whitmore.
Rachel’s chest tightened.
Anna had spent nearly $40,000 investigating her before ever entering the mansion.
Michael looked sick.
“This isn’t revenge anymore.”
Rachel stared at the screen.
“No.”
Anna had researched Rachel’s schedule.
Her foundation.
Her family.
Her digital habits.
Probably her marriage.
Then Rachel noticed one vendor.
Hawthorne Reproductive Services.
A fertility clinic.
Her breath stopped.
Michael stared too.
Rachel and Michael had used that clinic five years earlier during two unsuccessful rounds of IVF.
Those records were sealed and private.
There was no legitimate reason for Anna to know.
Rachel looked at Rebecca.
“Why was Anna paying someone connected to my fertility clinic?”
Rebecca’s face changed.
May you like
Because suddenly the question was no longer what Anna wanted from Michael’s family.
It was what she had stolen from Rachel’s.
Related Stories
