Chapter 8 - DIANA'S PRICE
Diana disappeared on a Tuesday.
Not dramatically.
No ransom note. No blood. No broken glass.
She simply stopped answering.
At first, I assumed she was avoiding me. That had become our family's preferred form of communication.
Then Mrs. Alvarez called.
"She didn't sleep at the house last night."
"Maybe a hotel."
"Her car is here."
My stomach tightened.
I called Dad.
He answered on the first ring.
"Where's Diana?"
"Safe."
"Where?"
"With friends."
"What friends?"
"Harper, stop behaving like I owe you reports on your sister."
"You do if she's missing."
"She isn't missing."
His tone told me he knew more.
I called Victor.
"I need a favor."
"Name it."
"I need to find Diana."
He did not ask why.
Thirty minutes later, one of his security analysts called with information Miriam could obtain legally: Diana's credit card had been used at a hotel near O'Hare. A room booked under her name. No checkout yet.
I went with Miriam.
Victor stayed away because I asked him to.
Diana opened the door after the third knock.
She looked awful.
Mascara under her eyes. Sweater inside out. A bottle of untouched champagne on the desk.
"Oh," she said.
Then she tried to close the door.
I stopped it with my foot.
"Are you okay?"
"Define okay."
"Did anyone hurt you?"
She stared at me.
"No."
"Did Dad send you here?"
"No."
"Pike?"
That broke her.
Diana sat on the edge of the bed and covered her face.
Miriam locked the door behind us.
"What happened?"
Diana spoke through her hands.
"Pike called me after the records room."
"What did he want?"
"The key."
"You already gave it to me."
"I know."
"He wanted something else?"
She nodded.
"He said there were copies of documents outside the office. He wanted Mom's ledger."
"He thinks you have it?"
"He thinks I can get it."
Cold moved through me.
"What did he offer?"
Diana looked up.
"To save Dad."
I did not understand.
"From what?"
"Federal charges. Tax charges. Fraud. He said if I brought him the ledger and the flash drive, he could make the worst records disappear."
Miriam's expression sharpened.
"Did you agree?"
"No."
The answer came too fast.
Diana burst into tears.
"I said I would think about it."
My stomach dropped.
"Did you come to my apartment?"
Her face changed.
"No."
"Did you tell him where I was staying?"
"No."
"Did you give him anything?"
She shook her head.
Then stopped.
"I sent him a picture."
"Of what?"
"The first page of Mom's letter."
I stood.
"Why?"
"Because he said Dad could go to prison for twenty years!"
"And you thought giving a fixer our mother's evidence would help?"
"I panicked!"
I paced to the window.
Miriam stayed calm.
"What exactly was visible in the photograph?"
Diana described it.
Mostly personal lines.
One important detail: Mom's reference to a second ledger stored with an attorney.
I turned.
"Second ledger?"
Diana nodded miserably.
"I didn't know what it meant."
Neither did I.
Miriam did.
"Your mother's estate attorney was Samuel Crane."
"He's dead."
"His firm still exists."
We drove there immediately.
The receptionist searched old archive records and found a sealed client package transferred to storage after Crane died.
Retrieval took three hours.
During that time, Diana and I sat across from each other in a conference room and did something we had almost never done.
We talked without Dad.
She told me she had been twelve when Mom got sick, not seventeen as I sometimes remembered. Old enough to understand fear. Young enough to believe Dad when he said the company would collapse unless Diana became "strong."
"He praised me whenever I chose him over you," she said.
I stared at my hands.
"I thought you enjoyed it."
"Sometimes I did."
The honesty hurt.
Diana swallowed.
"I liked being the favorite."
"Thank you for not pretending."
"I hated you because he made your softness sound like selfishness."
"I hated you because you made cruelty look easy."
She nodded.
"Fair."
Neither of us apologized for everything.
That would have been fake.
When the archive box arrived, Miriam cut the seal.
Inside was a second ledger and a notarized statement from Mom.
The statement identified Pike by name.
It also identified another person.
Antonio Rossi.
Victor's father.
My pulse quickened.
Mom wrote that Antonio had pressured Dad during the riverfront negotiation but that Pike had secretly approached her afterward with a different proposition: if she transferred the parcel to a holding company, Pike could protect it from both men.
She refused.
Then Pike began moving money from her foundation.
"He's been playing both families," Diana whispered.
Miriam nodded.
"For years."
My phone rang.
Victor.
I answered.
"We found the second ledger."
Silence.
"Where are you?"
"Crane's old firm."
"Who is with you?"
"Miriam. Diana."
Another silence.
"Is Diana okay?"
My sister looked surprised.
"Yes."
"Harper, listen carefully. Pike just contacted one of my executives and offered to sell him documentation that could destroy Malcolm and me."
"What documentation?"
"I don't know yet."
"Is it real?"
"Some of it probably is."
My chest tightened.
Victor's voice remained calm.
"He wants ten million dollars and immunity from retaliation."
"Are you going to pay?"
"No."
"What if he releases it?"
"Then he releases it."
I closed my eyes.
"Victor."
"If I buy silence, I become my father."
The words settled over the room.
Diana heard them.
So did Miriam.
Victor continued.
"My attorneys are contacting federal investigators. Pike can explain himself to them."
For the first time, I realized Victor was choosing exposure over control.
That choice could cost him.
"What's in the documents?" I asked.
"Old enforcement records. Contracts. Things I authorized when I was younger."
"Criminal things?"
He took too long.
"Possibly."
My breath caught.
"I won't lie to you, Harper."
That was not comforting.
But it was real.
Diana watched my face.
When the call ended, she whispered, "You trust him?"
"I don't know."
"Do you love him?"
I almost dropped the phone.
"What?"
"I've seen your face when he calls."
"This is not the time."
"It never is in this family."
Miriam cleared her throat.
"On that unusually perceptive note, we have a bigger issue."
She turned the second ledger toward us.
A payment dated fourteen years earlier.
$480,000.
From Halcyon Commercial Services.
To a private account.
Beneficiary: Diana Callaway.
Diana stared.
"I was fourteen."
"I know," Miriam said.
The next line showed the money transferred two days later.
To Malcolm Callaway.
Dad had used his own daughter as a pass-through account.
Again.
Diana looked at me, devastated.
"He did it to both of us."
May you like
For the first time, the truth did not divide us.
It put us on the same side.
