Chapter 10 - WHAT VANESSA STOLE BEFORE GRACE DISAPPEAREDThe safe was still in Ethan's home office.
He hadn't opened it in months.
Grace had known the code.
Vanessa knew there was a safe.
She supposedly didn't know the combination.
Ethan entered his office with police present.
Inside were property records.
Passports.
Sophie's birth certificate.
Insurance policies.
A small amount of cash.
Nothing obvious was missing.
Then Ethan remembered.
"Grace kept journals."
The detective looked at him.
"Here?"
"Two."
He searched.
Gone.
His stomach tightened.
"What was in them?"
"I don't know. I never read them."
Grace valued privacy.
He had respected it.
Maybe too much.
He called Bellora.
Grace answered.
"Your journals are missing."
Silence.
Then:
"Vanessa took them."
"You remember?"
"Some."
"What was in them?"
Grace hesitated.
"I wrote about you."
"Okay."
"Our fights."
He closed his eyes.
"Okay."
"And Vanessa."
"What about her?"
"Things she told me."
Ethan waited.
Grace explained.
Years before the crash, Vanessa had confessed something during a drunken conversation.
She believed her father, Richard Hale, had been involved in illegal prescriptions during his surgical career.
Pain medication.
Falsified records.
Patients.
"Why did Grace care?"
"Because one patient was my brother."
Ethan froze.
Grace's younger brother, Luke, died of an overdose at twenty-four.
Grace rarely spoke about it.
She blamed herself for not seeing the addiction.
"Richard treated Luke?"
"Yes."
Ethan had never known.
Grace continued.
"Luke's addiction started after surgery."
"Richard prescribed him medication."
"Too much."
Grace had written about it.
Later, she discovered Richard altered Luke's medical records after his death.
Vanessa knew.
Grace confronted her.
That betrayal ended their friendship.
Now the story became clearer.
Vanessa hadn't only feared Grace telling Ethan about Daniel.
Grace knew something that could destroy Vanessa's father.
"Why were you meeting Richard that night?"
"He called me."
"Why?"
"He knew I had evidence."
"What evidence?"
"A copy of Luke's original prescription records."
Ethan's pulse accelerated.
"Where did you get them?"
"Luke kept everything."
"Where are they?"
Grace became uncertain.
"I put them somewhere safe."
"Safe?"
"Not your safe."
She closed her eyes, trying to remember.
"Blue box."
Ethan froze.
Grace had owned a blue metal lockbox.
After the crash, he searched everywhere.
Never found it.
"What happened when you met Richard?"
"I didn't."
"You were driving to him?"
"Yes."
"Where?"
"Santa Ynez."
That explained why she was heading north.
"What was he offering?"
"Money."
Ethan stared.
"For silence?"
"Yes."
"Would you have taken it?"
Grace looked offended, then sad.
"I was going to record him."
Of course.
Grace had been collecting evidence.
"But Vanessa found out."
"Yes."
"How?"
"She saw my messages."
"Then met you before you reached Richard."
Grace nodded.
Ethan could see the night reconstructing itself.
Grace planned to meet Richard.
Vanessa intercepted her.
They argued.
Vanessa took Grace's phone.
Grace drove away.
Brakes failed.
Crash.
Richard somehow remained part of the cover-up.
But one thing still didn't fit.
"If Vanessa wanted your journals and evidence, why leave you alive?"
Grace's face went pale.
"I don't think she knew I was alive."
"At first?"
"At first."
"Then eleven months ago she found you."
"Yes."
"And hid you."
Grace looked down.
Ethan suddenly understood the deeper motive.
Vanessa wasn't only protecting her marriage.
Grace could remember Richard's crimes.
The missing records.
The crash.
Possibly enough to destroy both Vanessa and her father.
"What did Richard mean when he said if you remember him there's a bigger problem?"
Grace whispered:
"I don't know."
Ethan thought.
Then his office door opened.
A detective entered holding a file.
"We identified M."
Ethan turned.
"Who?"
The detective placed a photograph on the desk.
Richard Hale.
Vanessa's father.
The text conversations tied him directly to the plan to move Sophie to Arizona.
Ethan felt rage rise.
"He wanted my daughter brought to him?"
"Apparently."
"Why?"
The detective shook his head.
"We don't know."
Ethan called Vanessa.
Her attorney answered.
No conversation.
Then Grace said something through the speaker.
"Ethan."
He returned to the call.
"I remember the blue box."
"Where?"
Grace's breathing quickened.
"Not where."
"What?"
"Who I gave it to."
Ethan waited.
"The morning before the crash, I gave it to someone."
"Who?"
Grace began crying.
"Daniel."
Ethan stopped.
His business partner.
His closest friend.
The man who claimed he knew nothing about Grace's evidence.
"What did you tell him?"
"Keep it safe."
"Did he know what was inside?"
"Yes."
Ethan felt fury surge.
Daniel had lied again.
Then Grace whispered:
"He promised if anything happened to me, he'd give it to you."
Six years.
Daniel had attended Grace's memorial.
Watched Ethan bury an empty coffin.
Helped raise money for the search.
May you like
Stood beside Ethan through grief.
And somewhere during all of it, he may have been holding the one box that could explain why Grace disappeared.
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