Richard Vale.”
I stared at him.
“Vanessa’s father?”
Mom whispered, “He’s supposed to be dead.”
Richard Vale had supposedly died twenty-three years earlier.
There had been a funeral.
A death certificate.
An urn.
Vanessa had been twenty.
Except there had been no body.
Over the next forty-eight hours, detectives uncovered the rest.
Richard had staged his death.
He had lived under another identity for more than two decades.
And six months earlier, he contacted Vanessa.
At first, she thought it was a scam.
Then he proved who he was.
Richard told her my father had cheated him out of the hardware business.
He claimed the Cole family fortune had been built using money that rightfully belonged to Vanessa.
He showed her documents.
Some real.
Some forged.
He convinced her that taking Mom’s money wasn’t theft.
It was repayment.
Vanessa believed him.
Or wanted to.
Maybe because the boutique was failing.
