Chapter 12 - LAUREL CHOSE TO STAY AWAY — BUT NOT FOR THE REASON GRANT FEAREDThe letter was held by Laurel’s former therapist in Maine, released only through appropriate legal process after Laurel’s identity became relevant to the investigation.
Laurel wrote it but never sent it.
To Grant.
I remember you now.
Grant had to stop.
Then continued.
That is the problem. I remember loving you. I also remember that before the crash you had started repeating Harrison’s accusations as if they were your own.
Grant closed his eyes.
True.
He had accused Laurel of hiding assets.
Of undermining his father.
Of making family business personal.
He had not known the scale of the fraud.
But he had not trusted his wife enough either.
Laurel continued:
Harrison says if I come back, he will challenge my competence, accuse me of abandoning Wren, and bury Northstar in litigation. I do not know what is bluff and what is real.
Then:
I am trying to become well enough to fight properly instead of running home because I miss you.
A year later, she wrote another note.
I contacted an attorney outside Connecticut. We are preparing.
Then no more.
Something happened.
Investigators found the attorney.
Retired.
He remembered Laurel.
She had planned to return publicly.
Then he received word she died.
This time there was a body.
Laurel died eighteen months after the original crash.
An aneurysm linked to complications from her earlier head injury.
In Maine.
Under her own name restored privately.
The attorney had notified Harrison because of the unresolved estate dispute.
Harrison handled repatriation quietly.
Her ashes were interred in a private Mercer family plot.
Grant had never known.
He had mourned Laurel once when she was alive.
Then she actually died without him knowing.
That grief was different.
Sharper.
May you like
Cleaner.
And almost impossible to describe.
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