Chapter 2 - He Came Home Looking for a Daughter He Had Already Buried
David returned to Chicago the next morning.
Not because I asked him to.
Not because I gave him details.
He came because the funeral home charge frightened him more effectively than fifty calls from his wife.
At 8:34 a.m., the front door opened.
Nathan and I were sitting in the living room.
I heard David drop his suitcase.
“Rebecca?”
His voice sounded wrong.
Panicked.
Human.
For one terrible second, I almost forgot everything.
Then he walked into the room.
He looked tanned.
There was still a resort wristband around his left wrist.
I stared at it.
The contrast was so obscene I couldn't look away.
“Where is she?”
I said nothing.
David looked toward Nathan.
“Where's Lily?”
Nathan stood.
“Don't.”
David's face went white.
“Don't what?”
“Don't come in here acting like you didn't know something was wrong.”
“I didn't know!”
“Fifty calls.”
David turned toward me.
His eyes were red.
“I thought you were angry.”
“About what?”
“Julianne.”
The name hung between us.
So he admitted that much immediately.
“I thought you saw something online and were spiraling.”
Spiraling.
I almost smiled.
“Our daughter was in intensive care.”
His mouth opened.
No sound came.
“She collapsed at school Tuesday afternoon.”
David sat down hard.
“No.”
“She had fulminant myocarditis. The doctors said it happened fast.”
“No.”
“They tried everything.”
He shook his head.
“No, Rebecca.”
“She died at 2:17 Thursday morning.”
He began crying before I finished.
Not elegant crying.
Not quiet tears.
His body folded.
He pressed both hands over his face and made a sound I had never heard from him.
I watched.
And hated myself because part of me wanted his grief to prove something.
That he loved her.
That the man who ignored fifty calls had still loved his daughter.
Maybe he did.
That was what made everything worse.
He could love Lily and still abandon her when answering the phone became inconvenient.
People want cruelty to be simple.
It isn't.
David lifted his head.
“Where is she?”
“We buried her yesterday.”
His expression froze.
“You buried her?”
“Yes.”
“Without me?”
I looked at him.
“You told me not to contact you for two weeks.”
“You knew I didn't mean—”
“You rejected fifty calls.”
“I thought—”
“She waited for you.”
He stopped.
That hurt him.
Good.
I hated myself again.
“What?”
“She asked for you before they sedated her.”
David broke.
He fell to his knees.
I turned away.
I had no comfort left to give him.
After several minutes, he whispered, “Why didn't someone come get me?”
Nathan exploded.
“Because you're not the President of the United States, David! People don't send a rescue team when a grown man ignores fifty calls!”
David stood.
“Stay out of this.”
“No.”
Nathan stepped closer.
“My sister held your daughter while she died. Then she stood in freezing rain and watched Lily's coffin go into the ground while you were on a yacht.”
David looked at me.
“A yacht?”
He realized too late.
“You knew Julianne was there,” I said.
He closed his eyes.
“Rebecca—”
“Was she your mistress?”
He did not answer.
That was enough.
“How long?”
“It's complicated.”
“No.”
I stood.
“Math isn't complicated. Three months? Six? A year?”
He looked destroyed.
“Eight months.”
My daughter had spent eight months drawing pictures of a father building a second life.
I thought I would feel another wave of betrayal.
Instead, I felt tired.
“Go upstairs.”
David stared.
“What?”
“Pack.”
“This is my house.”
“No, this is where Lily lived.”
“Rebecca, please.”
“I cannot look at you here.”
“I just found out my daughter died.”
“And I found out alone.”
He flinched.
“I need to see her room.”
“No.”
His face twisted.
“You can't keep me from her things.”
“Watch me.”
Maybe that was cruel.
I didn't care.
Not yet.
David moved toward the stairs.
Nathan blocked him.
Then Margaret's voice came from behind us.
“Mr. Vance.”
David turned.
Margaret had arrived twenty minutes earlier through the side entrance.
She held a leather folder.
“Who are you?”
“Margaret Sloan. I represent Rebecca.”
David stared at me.
“You hired a lawyer?”
“Yes.”
“Before telling me my daughter was dead?”
“No. After discovering you built a company in her name.”
Every trace of grief disappeared from his face.
That terrified me more than anything.
“What are you talking about?”
“L.V. Holdings.”
Silence.
His eyes changed.
I had known David for fourteen years.
I knew his angry face.
His embarrassed face.
His charming face.
His lying face.
This was fear.
“That was estate planning.”
“Then why did it pay for your yacht?”
“It didn't.”
I placed the invoice on the coffee table.
David glanced at it.
Too quickly.
“You went through my office.”
“Yes.”
“You had no right.”
Margaret interrupted.
“Mr. Vance, I strongly recommend you stop speaking.”
He ignored her.
“Rebecca, Lily's trust was for her future.”
“She was seven.”
“I was building wealth for her.”
“Through Julianne's company?”
His face went still.
There it was again.
Fear.
Nathan whispered, “Jesus.”
David turned on me.
“You don't understand how the entities work.”
“I understand $1.6 million moved from a company supposedly owned by our daughter to a company controlled by your mistress.”
“Julianne isn't—”
“Don't.”
He stopped.
Margaret handed him a business card.
“You should retain counsel.”
David stared at it.
“Is this a threat?”
“No,” she said. “It's advice.”
His phone rang.
He looked at the screen.
Julianne.
I almost laughed.
David declined the call.
“How appropriate,” I said.
“Rebecca—”
“Answer her.”
“What?”
“You ignored me fifty times. Don't start developing manners now.”
He stared at me.
Then his phone buzzed with a message.
I watched his face change.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Nothing.”
Margaret stepped forward.
“David.”
He put the phone into his pocket.
“I need to go.”
“Where?”
“Office.”
“You just got home.”
“I need to understand what's happening.”
I almost admired the instinct.
Daughter dead.
Marriage destroyed.
Financial records exposed.
Still, the company came first.
Nathan saw it too.
“Your daughter's room is upstairs.”
David stopped at the front door.
His shoulders dropped.
For a second, I thought he might turn around.
He didn't.
He left.
Two hours later, Margaret's forensic accountant found something new.
L.V. Holdings had not been funded primarily with David's money.
It had received payments from Vance Meridian Logistics.
Vendor payments.
Consulting contracts.
Equipment reimbursements.
Millions of dollars had left David's company and entered an entity using Lily as beneficial owner.
“Why?” I asked.
Margaret's accountant, Simon Cho, looked at the screen.
“Possibly to hide income. Possibly to divert corporate funds. Possibly both.”
Then he opened another file.
“There's also a life insurance policy.”
My heart stopped.
“On David?”
Simon looked at me.
“No.”
I knew before he said it.
“Lily?”
He nodded.
The policy had been opened when she was three.
Face value:
$5 million.
Policy owner:
L.V. Holdings.
Beneficiary:
David Vance.
I stopped breathing.
Nathan stood so quickly his chair fell backward.
“No.”
Margaret immediately said, “Rebecca, this does not mean David harmed Lily.”
I looked at her.
She continued carefully.
“Parents sometimes buy life insurance on children for legitimate planning purposes.”
“Five million dollars?”
“It's unusual.”
The room spun.
Lily had died from a sudden medical condition.
Doctors had told me that.
I believed them.
I needed to believe them.
Margaret took my hand.
“Do not let your mind go somewhere the evidence does not support.”
I nodded.
But then Simon found a second document.
A claim notification.
Submitted electronically.
Time stamped:
6:42 a.m. that morning.
May you like
Less than four hours after David learned his daughter was dead.
He had already started the process of collecting five million dollars.
