Chapter 8 - The Other Victoria
The photograph had been taken in 1987.
Two identical young women stood outside a motel in Albany.
On the back were two names.
Victoria Hale.
Vivian Hale.
Twins.
Adrian stared at Miles.
"You're saying my stepmother is actually her sister?"
"I'm saying Charles believed that before he died."
Rachel looked at the photograph again.
"Which one is Victoria?"
"No idea."
Detective Ortiz opened another folder.
"Official records say Vivian Hale died in 1991."
"How?"
"House fire."
"Body identified?"
"By dental records."
Rachel already knew from Ortiz's expression that there was a problem.
"What?"
"The dentist who supplied those records lost his license two years later for falsifying insurance documents."
Adrian leaned back.
"This is insane."
Rachel agreed.
But fraud often became unbelievable only after it had continued long enough.
Ortiz explained.
Victoria Hale had worked briefly as an assistant accountant for Vale Maritime.
Vivian had worked in private nursing.
After the alleged fire, Victoria disappeared for nearly a year.
When she resurfaced, she was working at the Whitmore Heritage Foundation.
Within four years, she was having an affair with Charles.
Within six, Eleanor was dead.
"Why does the identity matter?" Adrian asked.
Ortiz looked at him.
"Because if Vivian is the woman in your house, then the real Victoria may have been the one who died."
Rachel saw the implication.
Every marriage document.
Every trust designation.
Every foundation appointment.
Every bank account signed by "Victoria Whitmore."
Potential identity fraud.
A financial empire built on a dead woman's name.
The investigation expanded overnight.
Federal agents joined.
So did the state attorney general.
Victoria responded with a press conference.
She stood on the courthouse steps and called the allegations "the desperate fantasies of a family trying to cover up its own fraud."
Then she looked directly into the cameras.
"Rachel Whitmore has manipulated my stepson for years."
Rachel watched from home.
"She will turn on you next," Victoria told Adrian through the lens.
Rachel switched off the television.
Adrian didn't react.
That frightened her more than anger would have.
"Say something."
He looked at her.
"What do you want me to say?"
"That you know what she's doing."
"I do."
"Then why do you look like you believe her?"
He stood.
"I don't believe her."
"Adrian."
"I believe I have spent my entire life inside stories other people wrote for me."
Rachel softened.
"Then write your own."
He walked out.
That night, he slept in the study.
Not because they were fighting.
Because he couldn't bear to sleep.
Rachel found him at three in the morning listening to Charles's recording again.
"I thought he was ashamed of me."
"Why?"
"He never talked about the Vales."
"Maybe he was protecting you."
"Maybe."
Rachel sat beside him.
"Charles chose you."
"He chose me and then spent the rest of his life hiding the choice."
"People can love well and still be cowards about the truth."
Adrian looked at her.
"Is that what you're telling yourself about me?"
The question hurt because it was deserved.
Rachel thought of the night Charles died.
Adrian had hidden suspicions from her for six years.
"I don't know yet."
For the first time, he looked afraid of losing something more important than the company.
"I'm sorry."
"I know."
"No."
He shook his head.
"I kept telling myself I was protecting you from ugly things."
"And?"
"I was protecting myself from admitting they were real."
Rachel leaned against him.
"Then stop."
"I am."
The next breakthrough came from Grace.
She remembered Victoria maintaining a safe-deposit box under the name V. Hale.
A warrant was obtained.
Inside the box were passports.
Two birth certificates.
A fire insurance settlement.
And a necklace engraved with the initials V.H.
The passport photograph identified the woman as Vivian Hale.
But the face belonged to Victoria.
Rachel stared at the evidence photograph.
"So she is Vivian."
Ortiz nodded.
"Likely."
"What happened to Victoria?"
"We don't know."
Then Bennett called from Whitmore House.
They had found something beneath the old greenhouse floor.
Not a body.
A metal case.
Inside were foundation ledgers dating back thirty years.
And a handwritten diary.
The first page read:
VICTORIA HALE - PERSONAL
The final entry was dated three days before the supposed house fire.
Rachel read the last lines.
Vivian says she can fix everything if I disappear.
I don't trust her anymore.
She wants my job at Vale. She wants my name.
I think she has been seeing Charles Whitmore.
Rachel looked up.
If the diary was authentic, then the woman who had spent decades as Victoria Whitmore wasn't merely a thief.
She had stolen her twin's identity.
Possibly after killing her.
But one question remained.
Why had the diary been hidden under the Whitmore greenhouse?
Somebody inside the estate had known the truth.
Rachel turned the final page.
One sentence had been added in different handwriting.
She recognized it immediately.
Charles's.
I FOUND THIS TOO LATE.
Below it:
RICHARD KNOWS WHERE THE ORIGINAL IS.
Richard Sloan.
Again.
The attorney had survived the hospital attack.
And this time, when Rachel arrived at his room, he was ready to talk.
He looked at her.
"I'll tell you everything."
Rachel sat.
"Start with Victoria."
Richard shook his head.
"No."
He looked toward the door.
"Start with the grave."
Rachel's skin went cold.
"What grave?"
May you like
Richard whispered.
"The one Charles paid me to open."
