Chapter 28 - Camille Hale
Camille chose a coffee shop near the Virginia State Capitol.
Public.
Busy.
Neutral.
I arrived with Zora.
Camille noticed immediately.
“I said no family.”
“She isn’t blood.”
Zora smiled sweetly.
“I’m worse.”
Camille almost laughed.
Almost.
She was forty, maybe forty-one, dressed simply in black slacks and a denim jacket.
Up close, the resemblance to Elise was undeniable.
I sat across from her.
“You photographed my studio.”
“Yes.”
“You left something at my house.”
“Yes.”
“You frightened me.”
Her expression tightened.
“I’m sorry for that.”
“Then don’t do it again.”
She nodded.
Fair enough.
She opened a leather folder.
“My mother died believing the Torrance family stole her future.”
“I read the obituary.”
Camille’s face flickered with grief.
“She had pancreatic cancer. Fast.”
“I’m sorry.”
“She spent her last week telling me not to fight this.”
“Then why are you?”
“Because dying people forgive things the living shouldn’t.”
That sounded like something Aunt Teddy might say.
“What exactly do you think my grandfather stole?”
Camille slid a document across the table.
It was a photocopy of a handwritten agreement.
My grandfather’s name appeared beneath it.
So did Elise’s.
Twenty percent ownership in Torrance Construction Holdings.
Dated 1987.
“Where did you get this?”
“My mother.”
“Dad said his father disputed the agreement.”
“Of course he did.”
“Do you have an original?”
“No.”
“That matters.”
“I know.”
She pushed another paper toward me.
A bank ledger.
Payments from the company to an account in Elise’s name stopped abruptly two weeks after the agreement.
Then came several transfers to an internal family trust.
The same trust whose assets had eventually funded my inheritance.
My stomach dropped.
“You think my fund came from her shares.”
“I know some of it did.”
“How?”
Camille opened a notebook.
“Because my mother kept records.”
She showed me diary excerpts, photocopied letters, invoices.
Enough to make me uncomfortable.
Not enough to prove everything.
“What do you want from me?”
She looked surprised.
“You.”
“For what?”
“Help.”
I almost laughed.
“You sent me threatening messages.”
“I sent one angry message.”
“Two.”
“The second was a meeting request.”
Zora cleared her throat.
“Ladies, let’s not get lost in punctuation.”
Camille sighed.
“I don’t want Matilda’s college fund.”
That startled me.
“I don’t want your studio. I don’t want your house.”
“Then what?”
“My mother wanted her name restored.”
I stared.
Camille’s eyes filled.
“The company history says Gerald Torrance Sr. founded everything alone. The family foundation archives don’t mention Elise. The marketing photography she created was credited to your grandfather’s firm.”
That felt familiar.
A woman erased because her story was inconvenient.
“What would restoring her name look like?”
“Truth.”
“Publicly?”
“Yes.”
“And financially?”
Camille hesitated.
“There should be an accounting.”
There it was.
“How much?”
“I don’t know.”
“Try.”
“If her twenty-percent stake was valid?”
She looked directly at me.
“Possibly eight figures.”
Zora stopped smiling.
I sat back.
Eight figures could tear my family apart.
Again.
May you like
Then Camille said something worse.
“I’m filing suit Friday.”
