Chapter 9 - The Price of a Name.
Vanessa laughed in disbelief, but Gideon did not withdraw the claim.
He produced an old letter hidden inside the lining of his medical bag.
Margaret had written it to Daniel months before Vanessa's birth.
She promised to name their child a Vale if he helped remove Eleanor from the inheritance.
Vanessa read the letter twice before tearing it down the middle.
“You kept this while he sat at our table every Christmas?”
Gideon's silence answered her.
Lucas wanted to contact federal investigators immediately, but Margaret moved first.
Every television station carried a morning statement from Vale Manor.
Margaret claimed Lucas had suffered a violent breakdown, kidnapped Gideon from medical care, and joined an impostor pretending to be the family's dead child.
She displayed Amelia's orphanage photograph beside images of the damaged dining room.
Daniel announced that the board had declared Lucas temporarily incompetent.
All Vale accounts connected to him were frozen.
A reward was offered for Amelia's arrest.
“She has turned the entire state into her security team,” Ruth said.
Amelia watched strangers online call her a thief, seductress, and murderer.
The lies spread faster than any evidence they possessed.
Gideon insisted they needed Daniel's confession before the board meeting scheduled that evening.
If Margaret secured permanent control, she could destroy the trust's original records.
Vanessa offered to return to the manor wearing a hidden transmitter.
Lucas refused.
“She tried to kill you too.”
“She has been trying since the day I remembered the nursery.”
Vanessa revealed a scar beneath her hairline.
Margaret had caused it during a staged riding accident when Vanessa was twelve and asking questions about the fire.
Amelia understood then that Vanessa's cruelty had been both learned behavior and armor.
It did not excuse the hammer.
It did explain why she never lowered her guard.
They created a plan using the jade pendant's memory transmitter.
The device could upload audio through Gideon's private satellite account, beyond Margaret's jammer.
Vanessa placed the pendant around her neck and returned to Vale Manor alone.
Margaret welcomed her in the same dining room where dried blood still marked the glossy floor.
“Where is Lucas?”
“He abandoned us when Gideon stopped breathing.”
Vanessa delivered the lie without blinking.
Daniel entered carrying documents that named him chief trustee.
For the first time, Vanessa looked at his face knowing it was also her own history.
“Mother told me everything,” she said.
Daniel's hand paused over the papers.
“Did she?”
Vanessa touched the pendant to signal the recording.
At the farmhouse, the computer displayed a live audio stream.
Amelia, Lucas, Ruth, and Gideon listened as Vanessa accused Daniel of forging the fire report.
Daniel denied it.
She accused him of bribing the orphanage.
He denied that too.
Then Vanessa used the one weapon Amelia had given her.
“Amelia remembers you carrying her out.”
Daniel laughed.
“She was six months old.”
The room at the farmhouse erupted.
Daniel had just admitted he knew Amelia's age at the time of the kidnapping.
Vanessa pressed harder.
“You left her at Saint Agnes.”
“No,” Daniel snapped.
“Ruth did, after I ordered her to drive east.”
Behind him, Margaret lifted the silver-handled hammer.
May you like
The audio stream ended with one crushing blow.
THE JADE SNAIL | A VALE FAMILY THRILLER
