Chapter 8 - Ghosts of the Past
Despite the peace growing within the penthouse, the remnants of our past were not ready to fade away quietly.
A month after Arthur’s arrest, I was sitting in the conservatory of the penthouse while the children were having their afternoon nap when the private house phone rang.
"Mrs. Vale," the concierge's voice sounded tight over the speaker. "There is a woman in the lobby demanding to see you. She claims to be Clarissa Hart."
I hesitated. Clarissa had been quiet since the Central Park incident, her family's firm busy dealing with the financial fallout of the canceled merger.
"Send her up," I said quietly. "Allow only her through security."
Five minutes later, Clarissa Hart stepped out of the private elevator. She looked vastly different from the glamorous, pristine socialite I had seen at Bethesda Terrace. Her clothes were simple, her hair pulled back into a tight bun, her eyes red-rimmed and hollowed by stress.
"Clarissa," I stood up, keeping my posture straight and dignified. "What are you doing here?"
Clarissa didn't yell. She didn't scream. She simply walked over to the glass table and set down a heavy leather-bound ledger.
"My father found this in Arthur Vale's personal safe in Long Island," Clarissa said, her voice flat and monotone. "Before Arthur was moved to the federal holding facility, he instructed his legal team to destroy it. My father was going to burn it... but I took it."
I frowned, looking down at the old ledger. "What is it?"
"It's the original ledger of the Vale Family Medical Offsets," Clarissa revealed, her fingers trembling slightly. "It proves that Arthur didn't just lie to Sebastian about your death, Maya. It proves Arthur was paying off the Chief of Medicine at the Brooklyn hospital to ensure you didn't receive proper prenatal care during your third trimester."
A cold spike of adrenaline shot through my chest. "What?"
"He wanted you to lose the baby," Clarissa whispered, tears finally welling in her eyes. "He was bribing the clinic staff to administer low-dose labor-inducing medication under the guise of prenatal vitamins. That's why you went into early labor, Maya. It wasn't stress. It was Arthur."
My hands flew to my mouth as a wave of nausea washed over me.
All those terrifying nights in the cold clinic... the agony, the bleeding, the doctors telling me I was losing them... it hadn't been an accident of nature. It had been a calculated, slow-motion attempt at murder by a grandfather who wanted to eradicate his own unborn bloodline.
"Why are you giving me this?" I whispered, my voice trembling violently.
Clarissa looked at me, a bitter, sad expression on her face. "Because I hated you, Maya. I hated you because Sebastian never looked at me the way he looked at your ghost. But when I read this ledger... when I realized what that old man tried to do to three unborn babies... I realized that my family was serving a monster."
She took a step back toward the elevator.
May you like
"Give it to Sebastian," Clarissa said softly. "The federal prosecutors need it to ensure Arthur never sees the light of day again. And... I'm sorry. For what I said in the park."
She stepped into the elevator, the steel doors sliding shut, leaving me alone in the silent, sunlit room with the horrifying truth of our past.
