Chapter 4 - What Sarah Hid Inside a Christmas Angel
Nathan spent the next day searching old storage boxes.
Lily watched him open pieces of his own past.
Photographs.
Christmas cards.
Company invitations.
A silver ornament shaped like an angel.
Lily suddenly pointed.
“Mama had one.”
Nathan looked at her. “Like this?”
“Same.”
Mae drove them to Sarah’s apartment after police released the belongings. The place smelled empty now. Lily stood in the doorway and refused to enter until Nathan took her hand.
Her mother’s little artificial Christmas tree remained beside the radiator.
Lily removed the angel from the top.
“It rattles.”
Nathan carefully opened the base.
A tiny flash drive fell into his palm.
Vanessa, who had insisted on accompanying them, went pale.
Nathan noticed.
“You know what this is?”
“No.”
“You looked like you did.”
“I’m tired of being interrogated.”
Back at the mansion, Nathan’s cybersecurity chief opened the drive.
It contained financial records from Cole Aerospace dated nine years earlier. Millions had been diverted through phantom vendors.
One approval signature belonged to Nathan.
He stared at it.
“I never signed this.”
The technician enlarged the image.
“It’s a digital copy.”
Sarah had apparently discovered someone forging Nathan’s authorization.
There was also an audio file.
Sarah’s younger voice filled the office.
“If Nathan ever hears this, it means they found me or I couldn’t keep Lily hidden anymore. The person moving the money is inside his family.”
Nathan stopped the recording.
Vanessa stood at the door.
“Inside his family” could mean dozens of people.
Nathan’s brother.
His uncle.
His wife.
His trustees.
His oldest friends.
Lily wandered in carrying a plate of Christmas cookies.
“Why everybody sad?”
Nathan immediately closed the laptop.
“Grown-up problems.”
“Money?”
Mae looked surprised.
Lily shrugged. “Mama always got sad with bills.”
Nathan took the cookie she offered.
“Your mother was trying to protect you.”
“She said protecting people makes you tired.”
Nathan swallowed.
“She was right.”
That evening, Vanessa entered the library alone.
She opened Nathan’s desk.
The flash drive was gone.
Nathan appeared behind her.
“Looking for something?”
Vanessa turned.
For once, she had no prepared smile.
Then a crash came from upstairs.
Lily screamed.
Nathan ran.
He found Parker standing over a shattered music box while Lily crouched beside the wall.
Parker’s fist was bleeding.
“I told her not to touch my mother’s things!”
Nathan stepped between them.
“You will never frighten her like that again.”
Parker stared at Lily with pure resentment.
May you like
Then he said something nobody expected.
“Ask her mother why my real father died.”
