Anna’s Last Request
Chapter 05 - Anna’s Last Request
Anna Hart had died four years earlier in a car crash on a coastal road.
Police said heavy rain caused her vehicle to leave the highway. James had been in London during the accident. Lily was three.
Rosa had worked for Anna before James inherited the family estate.
Two weeks before the crash, Anna gave her a small iron box.
“She said someone was taking money from the Hart Children’s Foundation,” Rosa explained. “She had copied records, but she did not trust the board.”
“Why didn’t you give it to me?”
“She told me to wait until Lily was safe.”
“Safe from whom?”
Rosa looked at the broken locket.
“Anna did not know.”
After the funeral, someone searched Anna’s bedroom, office, and car. The locket disappeared from the police inventory, then reappeared among James’s family jewelry after he married Vanessa.
Rosa assumed the evidence had already been found.
But Anna had hidden the key behind the photograph.
The iron box remained beneath a loose floorboard in the old greenhouse.
James accompanied Detective Torres and a forensic team to the estate.
The greenhouse had been locked since Anna’s death. Dust covered the glass. Dead vines clung to wooden frames.
Beneath a stone bench, Rosa removed two warped boards.
The box was there.
The brass key fit.
Inside were foundation ledgers, photographs, a flash drive, and a sealed letter addressed to James.
He opened the letter first.
James,
If you are reading this, then I either misjudged the danger or waited too long. Someone is moving money from the children’s emergency fund through companies connected to your family office. I found altered signatures, including yours.
Do not assume the person closest to you is the safest person to trust.
Protect Lily before you protect the Hart name.
Anna
The ledgers showed more than stolen money.
One shell company had purchased the vehicle that struck Anna’s car minutes before it left the road.
Another paid the mechanic who declared her brakes functional.
The company’s director was Vanessa’s older brother, Richard Vale.
James had hired Richard as financial manager six months after Anna died.
May you like
Vanessa met James through him.
The relationship James believed began by chance had been arranged around a secret Anna died trying to expose.
