4. Anna #2
"It went exactly as I expected it to go," Anna told her, her voice flat as she closed the heavy office door firmly behind her.
She walked over to the desk, setting her canvas tote bag onto the corner with a dull thud.
"Listen to me, I don't have a lot of time before Michael gets back here.
Can you call Owen and get him up to this office immediately?
I need to speak to both of you urgently. "
Linda blinked, her eyebrows rising at the intense, serious tone, but she nodded without asking a single question.
"Sure. He's down at the pool enclosure right now checking the secondary grid layout with the students." She retrieved her phone, quickly dialed his number, and spoke a few brief words into the receiver.
True to his word, Owen arrived within a few short minutes. He stepped through the doorway, wiping a bead of sweat from his brow before he closed the heavy wood panel behind him, ensuring their total privacy.
"Hi," Owen greeted them, his gaze shifting between the two women before settling on Anna. "How did things go with George at the medical center?"
"Exactly as expected," Anna repeated, the phrase tasting like ash on her tongue.
Owen moved toward the semicircle of leather chairs, taking a seat beside Anna's position. "Did you manage to hand him the proof from the past hoax?"
"I did," Anna nodded, a sudden flush of deep shame rising up her neck as she remembered the violent way she had slammed the folder against his chest. Years of built-up humiliation, professional isolation, and burning anger had simply caused her to snap the moment Michael brought his accusations into the hallway.
"But I have a major confession to make to the two of you, and I need you both to listen to me very carefully before you say a single word. "
She reached back into the canvas tote bag, her fingers pulling out a secondary, identical manila folder that had been hidden beneath the first. She slid it flat onto the mahogany desk blotter, pushing it toward the center of the wood so both Linda and Owen could see the stamps.
"Inside this file, you are going to find a series of highly detailed geological surveys covering the entire Hearts Hotel grounds and the independent campground across the road," Anna told them, her throat tightening with guilt. "I had them executed completely on the sly six months ago."
Linda and Owen exchanged a look of profound surprise, their brows knitting as Owen reached forward to flip the folder open.
"Six months ago?" Linda asked, her eyes scanning the top sheet. "How did you manage to bring a full surveying crew onto the property without Uncle George or the maintenance staff raising an alarm?"
"I contracted a regional environmental firm under the strict corporate guise of an eco-assessment for drainage control and aquifer stability," Anna explained, her voice steadying as she laid out the logistics.
"We used the pretext of the county's upcoming bridge expansion project, claiming the deep drilling down the highway could potentially disrupt the hotel's foundational water table and jeopardize our upcoming green-energy certification.
Because it seemed like a standard regulatory precaution to protect the hotel from government construction, George signed off on the permits without reviewing a single line of the specifics.
It allowed my crew to take deep core soil samples across the entire basin and the campground without a single corporate eyebrow being raised. "
Owen flipped through the technical charts, his eyes widening as he read the density metrics and the stratigraphy maps.
"Anna, these core readings are remarkably clear.
The anomaly projections show a massive structural footprint.
The Calusa settlement isn't just a minor cluster of artifacts; it spans the entire coastal parcel.
" He looked up, his face filled with amazement.
"The findings in this secret survey are completely genuine. "
"They are," Anna murmured, looking down at her hands.
Linda leaned forward, her finger tapping the stamped verification date at the lower corner of the page. "If you had this absolute proof six months ago, why on earth didn't you bring it straight to Uncle George back then? This could have saved us months of financial terror."
“Do you think he’d have listened to me?” Anna asked them with a brittle laugh. “You both know the truth about what happened all those years ago. So do you think he’d have listened?”
“No,” Linda and Owen said in unison
“Exactly,” Anna agreed. “That’s why I had to resort to other means.”
Linda’s brow furrowed, and her eyes narrowed suspiciously.
“What other means?” Linda asked cautiously.
Anna drew in a slow, ragged breath, squeezing her eyes shut for a brief second as the guilt sliced through her again.
"What I'm about to tell you... I need you both to remember that my sole intention was to save this hotel and protect your family legacy.
This had absolutely nothing to do with my professional ego.
But when I discovered the true extent of the financial crisis the hotel was facing this past winter...
" She clamped her jaw tight, breathing through her nose to steady herself.
"I knew I had to act underhandedly. That stubborn old fool George would have rather killed himself or let the bank seize the registry than ask a single living soul for financial assistance. "
Linda's expression softened, a sad, knowing sigh escaping her lips. "We know exactly how he is. We won't judge you, Aunt Anna. Please, just tell us what you did."
Anna took a steadying breath, forced to look her niece in the eye.
"Once the technical survey proved without a doubt that the settlement was down there, I knew I had to force the issue.
But George would have buried the reports if I sent them to him legally.
I had to intervene, to prove it. And the only operational opening I had was the hotel's annual pool maintenance drainage. "
The room went entirely still. Linda and Owen both went rigid in their chairs, the silent tension in the office shifting instantly as the implications of her words hung in the air.
Anna reached into the folder, her fingers wading through the dense geological charts until she pulled out a single, white sheet of paper bearing a bold signature at the bottom. She pushed it across the mahogany wood.
Linda picked it up, her eyes widening as she read the header aloud. "It's a signed personal confession."
"I used my academic connections to get the hotel's original pool maintenance firm temporarily suspended by filing an anonymous safety report regarding chemical storage irregularities," Anna confessed.
"Once they were off the property, I ensured my own specialized restoration crew secured the contract to handle the annual power-washing and paint refresh.
I drafted that full confession months ago and locked it in my files so that when George eventually exploded and discovered the timeline manipulation, no innocent third-party workers would ever take the legal fall for my choices. "
"Oh!” Linda breathed, surprised at Anna’s cunning.
"I contacted Rosa to ensure you would come down to the island for the summer," Anna told Linda, her eyes flashing with deep compassion.
"And before you ask, no, I had absolutely nothing to do with George's accident.
Good grief, I would never dream of causing physical harm to anyone.
I simply instructed Rosa to pass the accurate financial ledgers along to you so that you and Michael would finally discover the debt structure and come home to confront him.
The accident was simply fate's way of forcing that old man to slow down so you could catch him.
But honey... I am so truly sorry about the timing, especially with everything that was breaking down between you and Richard. "
Linda let out a soft, dry laugh, waving her hand dismissively as a genuine smile touched her lips.
"It's okay, Aunt Anna. That specific chapter of my life is thoroughly over now.
Honestly, the divorce was a blessing in disguise, and it's the sole reason I came back home to the bay. It brought me back to where I belong."
"I'm glad it brought you back," Anna said softly, nodding.
"At least there was a bright side to the chaos.
But the pool basin..." She paused, her throat going dry as Owen's stare turned incredibly sharp.
"I had the rogue crew intentionally stress the reinforced concrete basin during the drainage phase.
They used a high-pressure pneumatic tool near the main pressure valve to shift the sandy bedrock just enough to induce a clean structural fracture without damaging the underlying historical strata.
Then, once the pool was refilled, I had Rosa ask the regular cleaning company to run a comprehensive water-level check, claiming she feared the basin was dropping volume too frequently.
I knew they would find the leak immediately. "
Linda looked at her, totally gobsmacked, her hands resting flat against the desk. "So you orchestrated the entire structural failure?"