hoped to emulate. But he could also be inflexible, manipulative, and cold.
Did I think he’d murdered Amber? No.
Did I think he could have covered up her murder to protect himself? Absolutely.
Thea’s evidence was flimsy at best, but I could tell discovering the truth meant a lot to her. It was probably the only reason she’d returned to Moss Harbor in the first place.
I’d been trying to work out her rationale ever since Dad announced that she was moving back. Especially given her aloof behavior when she first arrived, combined with her refusal to accept the extravagant gifts offered to her. She hadn’t been after friendship or money, though she’d obviously given in on the former pretty quickly.
“Okay, I’ll help,” I finally said.
“You will?” Thea’s voice held as much disbelief as it did hope, and I was going to enjoy proving that I was the superior partner when it came to digging up dirt on Vincent Sharpe.
“Don’t bother trying to get into his computer,” I told Leo, who was undoubtedly still messing around with random passwords. “Since none of us are hackers, we have no hope of getting in.”
“What do you suggest, then?” he asked with a mocking tone.
I walked to the other side of the room and opened a door on the built-in bookshelf. Mirroring what I’d seen Dad do on camera last week, I removed what looked like a regular file box in front of the false back to the shelf and the wall safe behind it.
“Holy shit,” Leo said as he rounded the desk to stand next to me. “How did you know about that?”
I merely grinned at him. It was so much more fun letting him wonder.
Grateful I’d taken the time to freeze the video over and over until I could make out the combination, I punched in the numbers and mentally patted myself on the back when the door clicked open.
The safe held more items than I expected, so it took a while to sort through the piles of cash and expected personal and business documents. But when I opened an unlabeled folder and read the first page of several, I knew I’d found what we were looking for.
Leo might be able to throw a forty-yard pass and get any girl to drop her panties in sixty seconds flat. But he hadn’t been able to help Thea when she really needed it.
And I had.
It wasn’t everything.
But it was something.
Chapter Seventeen
Thea
Don’t go through with it.
She will pay the price.
This is your last chance.
You were warned.
I read the four, one-sentence letters spread out in front of me for what had to be at least the eighth time. They were all on pieces of plain white paper and had been typed with an actual typewriter.
The threats were simple, but that made them no less effective. My mother must have found out about them, and that’s why she’d been planning to take me and run.
“Don’t go through with what?” I mused aloud. “The wedding?”
“I don’t think so,” Hayle replied. While I’d been staring at the letters, he’d been inspecting the rest of the documents in the folder. “It appears that it had to do with the Green Industries acquisition.”
“What the hell does that mean?” Leo asked.
“Don’t you pay any attention to what goes on with the company?”
“Not if I can help it.”
Hayle dropped into Vincent’s desk chair. “A little over eight years ago, Sharpe Shipping attempted a hostile takeover of Green Industries.”
“Hostile takeover?” I asked, taking a seat across from him. I’d heard the term somewhere but had no idea what it actually meant.
“In this case, the CEO was very resistant to the idea of selling. His grandfather had started the company, and he was desperate to hang on to it. Dad was determined to get his hands on a patent they owned, so he went directly to the shareholders in an attempt to go over the CEO’s and the board of directors’ heads. If he would have succeeded, it would have been a hostile takeover.”
“What happened?” I asked.
Hayle rested his arms on the desk, his expression solemn. “A week after your mother’s funeral, Dad walked away from the deal. It was big news in the business world. Many speculated that he was so devastated by the loss of his fiancée that he didn’t have the energy needed to go through with it. Hostile takeovers are usually exhausting, drawn-out processes, so that explanation made sense.”
My mind spun as I tried to work through the implications.
Don’t go through with it.
She will