Chapter 7
Firefighters reached the apartment before the flames spread beyond the study.
Daniel Price was gone.
So was the envelope about my mother.
The hidden service passage led to a maintenance tunnel beneath the building.
Price had known every exit.
He had also known exactly how to hurt me.
I stood outside as firefighters carried my father’s burned desk through the lobby.
Agent Cole stayed beside me.
“You cannot keep answering his demands.”
“He has the letter.”
“He may have written it himself.”
“The handwriting was my father’s.”
“Then we recover it without giving Price what he wants.”
Smoke poured from an open window above us.
The apartment had survived.
Most of the study had not.
Margaret arrived carrying a document box.
When I told her about the envelope, she looked away.
“You know what it says,” I said.
“I know part of it.”
“Is my mother alive?”
“No.”
The answer came quickly.
Too quickly.
“What are you hiding?”
She motioned toward the SUV.
We sat inside while agents searched the building.
Margaret placed the document box between us.
“Your mother’s name was Laura Bennett. You were told she died from complications following an illness.”
“That is what my father said.”
“She died in a house fire.”
I stared at her.
“Why would he lie?”
“Because the house belonged to Charles Voss.”
The name seemed to follow every tragedy in my life.
Margaret continued.
“Laura worked for Meridian before your father. She discovered the first forged transfers.”
“My mother knew Diane?”
“They were close friends.”
I almost laughed at the cruelty of it.
“Diane never mentioned her.”
“Because Laura was the first person Diane betrayed.”
Margaret handed me a photograph.
My mother stood between Diane and Charles Voss at a company picnic.
Laura was holding me.
Diane’s hand rested on my mother’s shoulder.
“Laura copied several property files,” Margaret said. “She planned to give them to a reporter. Before she could, Voss invited her to meet at one of his vacant houses.”
“The house burned.”
“Yes.”
“Was I there?”
“No. Thomas had you.”
“Did Diane start it?”
“We never proved who did.”
I thought about the envelope in Price’s hand.
“My father learned something later.”
“Philip found a payment to an arsonist. Thomas wrote the details for you, but he could not bring himself to give you the letter.”
I looked at the damaged building.
Price was using my parents’ deaths to drag me into the open.
He wanted the final page.
But he had already stolen the ledgers.
“What else does he need?”
Margaret opened the document box.
Inside lay a stock certificate.
“The trust shares cannot compel an audit without your signature.”
“The property-transfer form would have given Diane that authority.”
“Yes.”
“And now?”
“Voss needs you to sign directly.”
That was why they had not killed me.
My name opened more than the bank box.
It could expose Meridian—or protect it.
A plan formed slowly.
“We give him what he wants.”
Cole shook his head.
“No.”
“We schedule a Meridian shareholders’ meeting.”
“Voss is a fugitive.”
“He still controls the company through the board.”
Margaret understood.
“Elena can formally demand an audit.”
“And force Voss to appear or send someone with his authority,” I said.
Cole considered it.
“He may send Price.”
“Then we take Price.”
“And if Voss appears?”
“We take both.”
Rachel arranged an emergency meeting for the next evening at Meridian’s headquarters.
News of the federal investigation had already caused the company’s stock to collapse.
Investors demanded answers.
Board members hired lawyers.
Employees carried boxes from the building.
I spent the night in a secure location preparing with Margaret.
At dawn, a package arrived.
There was no return address.
Inside lay my father’s half-burned envelope.
The letter was gone.
Only a small photograph remained.
It showed Diane standing outside the house where my mother died.
The date was written across the bottom.
Beside Diane stood Aaron Cole.
I took the photograph to him.
He studied it in silence.
“You were there.”
“I was nineteen years old.”
“You knew my mother?”
“My father was a firefighter. I went to the scene looking for him.”
“Why are you standing with Diane?”
“I didn’t know who she was.”
“You have forgotten many important details.”
His face tightened.
“I remember that night every day.”
“Then tell me.”
Cole sat down.
“The fire was already out when I arrived. Diane stood across the street with soot on her coat. She said she had tried to enter the house.”
“Did you believe her?”
“At the time.”
“What changed?”
“I later saw a witness statement saying she arrived before the fire started.”
“Who gave the statement?”
“Daniel Price.”
His own partner had placed Diane at the scene.
Then Price buried the report.
“Why didn’t you tell me this earlier?”
“Because I could not prove the photograph was genuine.”
“You could have told me it existed.”
“I was trying to protect the investigation.”
I stood.
“That excuse has destroyed enough families.”
At six that evening, I entered Meridian headquarters wearing my father’s signet ring.
Derek once told me the old gold ring looked unfashionable.
Now it reminded me whose daughter I was.
Reporters crowded outside.
Federal agents posed as security.
Margaret sat beside me at the boardroom table.
Rachel monitored from a nearby office.
Cole watched the building’s entrances.
Derek had agreed to cooperate in exchange for consideration at sentencing.
He was brought in through the garage wearing a concealed recording device.
Diane believed he had turned against me.
That was part of the plan.
The board members gathered.
Charles Voss’s chair remained empty.
At exactly six thirty, Diane entered with two lawyers.
She had been temporarily released under a cooperation agreement.
Her clothes were immaculate again.
She looked at the bandage on my head and smiled.
“You should have signed at dinner.”
“You should have helped your son instead of handing him a towel.”
“He has always been weak around you.”
Derek entered behind her.
His expression revealed nothing.
Diane touched his cheek.
“My boy.”
He sat beside her.
Margaret called the meeting to order.
I presented the trust certificate and formally demanded a forensic audit.
Diane objected.
“The trust’s ownership is disputed.”
“By whom?”
“By me.”
She produced another transfer document.
My signature appeared at the bottom.
For one terrifying second, it looked genuine.
Then Margaret examined the date.
“This document claims Elena signed two weeks ago while she was in Chicago.”
Diane smiled.
“Correct.”
“I was in Chicago,” I said. “Speaking at a conference in front of six hundred people when this was supposedly notarized in Boston.”
Diane’s smile weakened.
“The notary can verify it.”
The boardroom door opened.
The notary entered in handcuffs.
Rachel followed him.
“He has already admitted Diane paid him to falsify the signature.”
Diane stood.
“This meeting is illegal.”
“No,” Margaret said. “Your document is.”
The screens around the room suddenly lit up.
Charles Voss appeared by video.
He sat in a dark office.
“Enough,” he said.
Every board member fell silent.
Voss looked directly at me.
“You have inherited your father’s talent for disruption.”
“You murdered both my parents.”
“You should be careful with accusations.”
“You sent Price to burn my home.”
“I have not spoken to Daniel Price in years.”
Derek moved his hand beneath the table.
He activated the recorder.
Diane noticed.
Her eyes narrowed.
Voss continued.
“Withdraw the audit demand, and I will return your father’s letter.”
“Appear in person.”
“I’m not a fool.”
“No. You are a coward who hides behind women, sons and dead men.”
Anger flashed across his face.
Diane leaned toward Derek.
“What are you recording?”
He did not answer.
She reached beneath his jacket and tore out the microphone.
The room erupted.
Diane threw the device onto the table.
“He is working with them!”
Voss’s image vanished.
The lights went out.
Gunfire sounded in the hallway.
Cole shouted over the emergency radio.
“Price is inside the building!”
The board members dropped to the floor.
Diane grabbed the forged transfer document and ran.
Derek caught her at the door.
“Move,” she ordered.
“No.”
“I am your mother.”
“You used me to steal Elena’s life.”
“I gave you a purpose.”
“You gave me your hatred.”
She slapped him.
Derek did not move.
Diane struck him again.
Then a shot shattered the glass wall behind us.
Daniel Price stepped through the smoke.
He pointed a gun at his sister.
“You should have kept your mouth shut, Diane.”
Diane froze.
“Daniel?”
“You gave them the pumping station.”
“You abandoned me.”
Price laughed.
“Family always becomes sentimental when prison gets close.”
Derek moved in front of his mother.
Price aimed at him.
“Step aside.”
Diane grabbed Derek and shoved him toward the gun.
The shot exploded.
Derek fell.
I screamed and ran toward him.
Price seized Diane by the arm and dragged her through the broken doorway.
Cole fired after them, but Price disappeared into the stairwell.
Derek lay on the carpet with blood spreading beneath his shoulder.
He gripped my wrist.
“Don’t let her take the ring.”
I looked down.
My father’s signet ring was gone.
Across the room, the emergency exit closed behind Diane.
She had pulled the ring from my hand while I ran past her.
Margaret stared after her.
“The ring isn’t jewelry.”
“What is it?”
“It contains the trust’s authentication seal.”
May you like
Without it, I could not authorize the audit.
And with it, Diane could make one final attempt to take everything.
