Chapter 4 - THE WILL THAT WAS NEVER IN THE VAULTSamuel spent the night in an interrogation room.
The investigators placed bank transfers, corporate filings, and encrypted messages across the metal table.
Each piece of evidence appeared to connect him to Northbridge.
There were payments from Sterling accounts to companies bearing his digital signature.
There were authorization codes issued from his office.
There was even a recorded call in which a voice resembling his discussed removing Evelyn from control of Sterling Global.
“It is fabricated,” Samuel said.
Detective Aaron Price sat across from him.
“All of it?”
“Yes.”
“Someone built an entire financial network using your identity?”
“David did.”
“Why would David transfer control to a company registered through you?”
“To discredit the only attorney Evelyn trusted.”
Price tapped the documents.
“Or you and David were partners until something went wrong.”
Samuel leaned forward.
“If I wanted Evelyn’s fortune, why would I create Protocol Black?”
“To eliminate David.”
“And expose myself?”
“You did not expect us to find Northbridge.”
Samuel sat back.
The trap was elegant.
David had not merely planned to kill Evelyn.
He had planned to place Samuel beside him as a second villain.
If David were arrested, Samuel would fall with him, leaving no trusted person to defend Evelyn’s true will.
At the hospital, Helena watched Evelyn struggle to use the replacement eye-tracking computer.
The toxin had affected her vision. Each command required several attempts.
Jessica entered under police supervision shortly after sunrise.
Helena stood immediately.
“You should not be here.”
Jessica removed her sunglasses.
Her eyes were swollen from crying.
“I asked to speak with Evelyn.”
“You laughed while David planned her funeral.”
“I know.”
“You helped him.”
“I know.”
Helena crossed the room.
“Did you know he kept me alive?”
“No.”
“Did you help him forge my death certificate?”
“No.”
“Did you know he was poisoning her?”
Jessica looked at Evelyn.
“I knew he was giving her something.”
Helena’s face twisted.
“And you said nothing.”
“He told me it was medication that made her sleep.”
“You believed that?”
“I wanted to.”
Evelyn’s computer sounded.
Both women turned.
JESSICA KNOWS.
Helena stared at her daughter.
“Knows what?”
Jessica looked frightened.
“I don’t know.”
The screen continued.
WHERE THE ORIGINAL IS.
Jessica shook her head.
“No.”
Helena stepped closer.
“Where is Evelyn’s will?”
“I never saw it.”
The computer spoke again.
CURTAINS.
Jessica’s expression changed.
She remembered the measuring tape.
David had not asked her to measure the windows merely because they wanted new curtains. He had given her exact measurements from old architectural plans and ordered her to confirm them.
The difference between the original wall and the remodeled wall was eleven inches.
There was a hidden compartment behind the curtain frame.
Jessica faced Evelyn.
“You knew?”
YES.
“Then why didn’t you retrieve it?”
BAIT.
The will in Samuel’s office had been bait.
The bedroom compartment held something else.
Jessica approached the ivory curtains.
A police officer moved with her.
She ran her fingers along the wooden frame until she found a nearly invisible seam.
She pressed it.
Nothing happened.
Evelyn’s computer displayed three numbers.
4-1-7.
Jessica entered them into a tiny keypad concealed beneath the molding.
The wall opened.
Inside was an empty steel box.
Helena’s heart sank.
Someone had already found it.
A pair of broken eyeglasses lay on the floor of the compartment.
Samuel’s glasses.
At that same moment, Detective Price placed a photograph in front of Samuel.
It showed him entering the Sterling estate six nights earlier.
“You told us you had not visited Evelyn in person for three weeks,” Price said.
“I did not.”
“The security camera disagrees.”
The image clearly showed Samuel’s face, his suit, and his glasses.
Samuel studied it.
The date stamp was genuine.
The image had not been edited.
Yet he had been in Boston that night arguing a federal case before witnesses.
“Someone impersonated me.”
Price almost smiled.
“Of course.”
Samuel looked more closely.
The man in the photograph wore Samuel’s clothes and carried Samuel’s briefcase.
But the watch was wrong.
Samuel never wore one.
“Zoom in.”
Price did.
A silver watch appeared on the man’s wrist.
David’s silver watch.
Samuel pointed.
“That is David.”
“The face is yours.”
“He used a mask or digital manipulation.”
Price collected the documents.
“You are going to remain here.”
At Sterling Global headquarters, the emergency board meeting began.
Northbridge representatives voted to suspend Evelyn as chief executive.
David attended by video from his attorney’s office.
He spoke softly about protecting the company during his wife’s tragic decline.
The board approved the motion by a margin of one vote.
David smiled.
Then every screen in the room turned black.
A white message appeared.
PROTOCOL BLACK: SECONDARY RELEASE.
An audio recording began playing.
David’s voice filled the boardroom.
“When the will disappears, Samuel takes the blame.”
Board members looked toward one another.
David’s smile vanished.
A second voice answered him.
“And Jessica?”
David’s reply came clearly.
“She is useful until the funeral.”
Jessica heard the recording from Evelyn’s hospital room.
Her hands began to shake.
Helena watched her.
“What else did he say?”
Evelyn’s computer displayed one sentence.
THE ORIGINAL RECORDING IS INSIDE WHAT JESSICA DROPPED.
Jessica remembered the measuring tape falling from her hand when Helena stepped from behind the curtain.
She had left it on the bedroom floor.
But when police returned to collect it, the measuring tape was gone.
Jessica looked toward the hospital door.
May you like
David had sent someone back into the locked crime scene.
And whoever had taken the tape was already inside the hospital.
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