Chapter 6 - What Happened to Elena ValmontMargaret Whitmore refused to speak to police until Nicholas arrived.
Against Dr. Hale’s instructions, he went.
Iris went with him.
The hospital room was small compared with Nicholas’s private suite.
Margaret sat upright against white pillows, one side of her face bruised from the fall that had occurred after she reached the motel.
She looked twenty years older than the woman Iris remembered answering calls with flawless composure.
The moment she saw Nicholas, she started crying.
“I’m sorry.”
Nicholas stopped near the doorway.
“For what?”
“For waiting.”
He did not move.
Margaret looked at Iris.
“You found the room?”
“Yes.”
“The notebook?”
Nicholas answered.
“Yes.”
Margaret closed her eyes.
“Then you know some of it.”
“I want all of it.”
His voice was emotionless.
Margaret nodded.
Twenty years earlier, Elena Valmont had begun experiencing unexplained heart problems.
Her husband, Victor, traveled constantly.
Conrad managed many family affairs.
Arthur Mercer, then a promising private physician, handled Elena’s treatment.
“She trusted him,” Margaret said. “At first.”
Then Elena began deteriorating.
She became weak.
Confused.
Her heart rhythm changed.
Mercer insisted the illness was genetic.
But Elena suspected something was wrong with the medication.
“She asked me to send a sample to an independent laboratory.”
Nicholas’s jaw tightened.
“The missing toxicology report.”
Margaret nodded.
“The test showed contamination.”
Iris felt Nicholas stiffen beside her.
“Why wasn’t anyone arrested?”
Margaret’s eyes filled.
“Because the report disappeared before Elena could contact authorities.”
“Conrad.”
“I believed so.”
“Believed?”
“I never saw him take it.”
Nicholas leaned forward.
“My mother wrote his name.”
“She trusted your uncle with financial matters. When she confronted him about Mercer, Conrad told her she was becoming paranoid.”
Margaret looked ashamed.
“And everyone believed him.”
Nicholas’s hand curled into a fist.
“Two days later she died.”
Silence.
Iris watched twenty years collapse inside him.
“All this time,” Nicholas whispered, “I thought she was sick.”
“She was sick.”
Margaret’s voice broke.
“But I don’t believe nature made her that way.”
Nicholas stood.
“Why didn’t you tell my father?”
“I did.”
He froze.
“What?”
“I told Victor everything.”
“And?”
Margaret looked at him with heartbreaking pity.
“Your father told me never to mention it again.”
The room seemed to darken.
Nicholas took one step backward.
“No.”
“I’m sorry.”
“He knew?”
“I don’t know how much he knew. He said there was no evidence and that accusations would destroy the family.”
Nicholas laughed once.
A terrible sound.
“Of course.”
“Nicholas—”
“He protected the company.”
Margaret nodded slowly.
“I think he believed he was protecting you too.”
“By leaving me with Conrad?”
“I begged him not to.”
Nicholas turned toward the window.
Iris moved closer but did not touch him.
Margaret continued.
“When Victor died seven years ago, Conrad expected to become chairman.”
“But Nicholas inherited controlling voting rights,” Iris said.
“Yes.”
Margaret looked at Nicholas.
“Elena arranged that before she died.”
He turned.
“What?”
“She changed the trust.”
Nicholas stared.
“Conrad never knew?”
“He knew after her death.”
Now the motive became brutally clear.
Elena had blocked Conrad from permanent control.
Twenty years later, Nicholas stood in the same way.
A barrier.
Margaret took a breath.
“When Dr. Mercer returned to your life last year, I was frightened.”
Nicholas frowned.
“He contacted me through the family foundation.”
“I know.”
“Why didn’t you warn me?”
“I tried.”
“I don’t remember that.”
“You had your lawyers review him.”
“And they found nothing.”
“Because I was afraid to say what I knew.”
Nicholas’s anger flashed.
“My mother died.”
“I know.”
“And you watched him prescribe medication to me?”
Margaret flinched.
Iris touched Nicholas’s arm.
He looked at her.
She said quietly, “Let her finish.”
Nicholas breathed out.
Margaret wiped her eyes.
“When you became sick, I searched Elena’s old files. The toxicology report was gone, but I remembered the symptoms.”
“So you entered the house.”
“Yes.”
“The photograph?”
“Yes.”
“Why not simply call me?”
“I did. Three times.”
Iris remembered.
Margaret continued.
“Conrad’s assistant contacted me after my second call. Asked what I wanted with you. That’s when I panicked.”
“You thought your phone was monitored.”
“Yes.”
“So you went into hiding.”
“I planned to leave Chicago until I could reach federal investigators.”
“What happened?”
“Someone followed me.”
Nicholas went still.
“Who?”
“I don’t know.”
Margaret escaped by abandoning her car near the harbor and taking a taxi.
She reached the motel but collapsed from exhaustion.
“Why the warning instead of staying?”
“Because I knew if Conrad believed I had evidence, he would look for me first.”
Nicholas’s expression was unreadable.
“You used yourself as bait.”
“I failed Elena once.”
Margaret’s voice shook.
“I was not going to fail her son.”
Nicholas looked away.
For several seconds he said nothing.
Then he walked to the bed.
Margaret stared up.
“I’m sorry.”
Nicholas took her hand.
“You kept me alive.”
She began crying again.
“No,” she whispered. “Iris did that.”
Nicholas glanced over.
His gaze held Iris’s.
Something warm and painful passed between them.
After they left, Nicholas was unusually quiet in the car.
Iris waited.
Eventually he said, “My father knew.”
“You don’t know exactly what he knew.”
“He knew enough.”
“Probably.”
“He chose the company.”
Iris looked through the window.
“People sometimes convince themselves silence is protection.”
“My father did that his entire life.”
“And you?”
Nicholas turned.
“What about me?”
“You spent five years doing something similar.”
His eyes narrowed.
“With what?”
“With everything.”
He said nothing.
“You cared about me.”
Nicholas went very still.
“You paid tuition. You knew my history. You left me your house. You arranged your life around making sure I stayed close.”
Iris looked directly at him.
“But you never said anything because silence felt safer.”
His expression changed.
“You’re comparing my feelings for you to my father covering up murder?”
“When you phrase it like that, my argument sounds terrible.”
A reluctant smile appeared.
Iris softened.
“My point is that silence doesn’t protect people as well as we think.”
Nicholas watched her.
The car slowed at a red light.
“Then maybe I should stop.”
Iris’s heartbeat accelerated.
Nicholas leaned closer.
“I have been in love with you for three years.”
There was no dramatic music.
No champagne.
No ballroom.
Only traffic outside an armored car and Nicholas Valmont looking at her with terrifying honesty.
Iris forgot how to breathe.
“You—”
“I know this is inappropriate.”
“Nicholas.”
“And complicated.”
“Nicholas.”
“And the timing is catastrophically bad.”
She stared.
“Are you going to let me speak?”
“Probably not.”
Iris grabbed his tie.
Nicholas’s eyes widened.
She pulled him toward her and kissed him.
For one heartbeat he did nothing.
Then his hand came to her face.
The kiss changed.
Five years of restraint disappeared.
Every glance in the kitchen.
Every unfinished sentence.
Every woman Iris had pretended not to care about.
Every late night Nicholas had invented reasons to remain downstairs.
When they separated, both were breathing harder.
Nicholas rested his forehead against hers.
“I was going to make a very persuasive speech.”
“You were talking too much.”
“I do that when terrified.”
“The great Nicholas Valmont?”
“Completely.”
Iris smiled.
He kissed her again.
Then his phone rang.
Nicholas ignored it.
It rang again.
Marcus turned from the front seat.
“Sir.”
“What?”
“We have a problem.”
Nicholas sighed and answered.
His face changed within seconds.
“What happened?”
Iris asked.
Nicholas lowered the phone.
“Conrad called an emergency board meeting.”
“For when?”
“Tomorrow morning.”
“Can he do that?”
“He only needs three directors to support the motion.”
“What motion?”
Nicholas looked at her.
“To declare me medically incapacitated.”
Her stomach dropped.
“And if they succeed?”
“Conrad becomes acting chairman immediately.”
The timing was not coincidence.
Conrad knew the investigation was closing in.
May you like
He no longer needed Nicholas dead.
He only needed him powerless.
Related Stories
