Chapter 6 - THE VIDEO BESIDE THE WRECKNo one spoke for several seconds.
Samuel removed the black signet ring from his hand and placed it on the table.
Edward Sterling had given it to him after Samuel won his first major case for the company.
Only two such rings had ever existed.
Edward wore the other.
Helena replayed the footage.
“The man has your face.”
“It is not me.”
“He has your ring.”
“My ring disappeared for three weeks before Edward died.”
“You never reported that?”
“I thought I had misplaced it.”
Jessica looked at him.
“That is convenient.”
Samuel ignored her.
“Show the entire recording.”
“That is all we recovered,” the detective said.
“Then recover more.”
“The remaining data is corrupted.”
Evelyn’s tracking point moved across her screen.
Samuel waited as she formed a sentence.
WHERE WERE YOU?
“Boston.”
Twelve years earlier, Samuel had told police he was in Boston during Edward’s crash. Hotel records and airline tickets supported his statement.
But records could be fabricated.
Helena’s voice softened.
“Samuel, tell her everything.”
He looked at Evelyn.
“Your father sent me to Boston to meet a federal investigator. He believed someone inside Sterling Global was stealing money through Northbridge.”
“David?” Jessica asked.
“David was not yet using that name.”
Samuel opened a file from the memory card.
A personnel photograph appeared.
The man was younger, with longer hair and a different surname.
DANIEL ROWE.
“He worked for one of Edward’s private investment companies,” Samuel said. “Your father discovered that Rowe was moving funds through shell corporations.”
Jessica stared at the image.
“That is David.”
“Edward planned to report him.”
“What happened?”
“Edward died before he could.”
Evelyn’s computer spoke.
WHY DID YOU HIDE THIS?
Samuel looked ashamed.
“Your father made me promise not to involve you unless we had proof. After his death, the evidence disappeared. Daniel Rowe disappeared too.”
“And later he returned as David Sterling,” Helena said.
“He married Evelyn under a false identity,” Jessica whispered.
Samuel nodded.
“He did not marry her because he discovered the fortune afterward. He knew who she was from the beginning.”
The truth altered every memory Evelyn had of David.
Their supposed accidental meeting at a charity auction.
His lack of interest in her family name.
His patience during their courtship.
All of it had been planned.
Jessica picked up her phone.
“He expects me at the apartment tonight.”
“You cannot go alone,” Helena said.
“He will search me if someone follows.”
Samuel studied her.
“Can you get the access key?”
“Yes.”
“Will he trust you?”
Jessica remembered the video in which David discussed arranging her death.
“He thinks I still love him.”
Samuel gave her a small transmitter disguised as a diamond earring.
“The police will listen.”
Jessica put it on.
“What if he finds it?”
“Then leave.”
She gave him a humorless smile.
“David never lets anyone leave.”
That evening, Jessica entered David’s penthouse wearing the same red gown she had worn in Evelyn’s bedroom.
David poured champagne as though nothing had happened.
“I knew you would come back.”
“You told me my mother was dead.”
“She was supposed to be.”
Jessica forced herself not to react.
“Did you plan to kill me too?”
David smiled.
“Samuel showed you the recording.”
“You said it was edited.”
“Parts of it were.”
“Which parts?”
“The parts you need to believe.”
He approached her and touched the diamond earring.
Jessica stopped breathing.
David examined it.
Then he kissed her cheek.
“You always choose beautiful things.”
He turned away.
The access key rested beneath his shirt.
Jessica moved behind him and wrapped her arms around his waist.
“I was frightened.”
“You should be.”
“I thought Evelyn had beaten us.”
“No one beats me.”
She slid one hand beneath his collar.
David caught her wrist.
For a second, his expression became empty.
Then he released her.
“You are trembling.”
“I nearly lost everything.”
“You still might.”
Jessica kissed him.
While his attention shifted, she unfastened the chain and allowed the metal key to fall into her palm.
David’s phone rang.
He stepped away to answer it.
Jessica concealed the key inside her gown.
A voice came through the phone loudly enough for her transmitter to capture it.
“The second section of the crash video has been restored.”
David’s face changed.
“Destroy it.”
“It has already been sent to the hospital.”
Jessica turned toward the door.
David ended the call.
“Where are you going?”
“To get more champagne.”
“The kitchen is the other direction.”
Jessica ran.
David caught the back of her dress, tearing the fabric.
She struck the elevator button.
He grabbed her shoulder.
Police burst from the stairwell.
David released her and fled through a private service door.
Jessica gave Samuel the access key before following officers downstairs.
At the hospital, the restored footage was waiting.
Everyone gathered around the screen.
The video resumed eleven seconds after the image of the man wearing Samuel’s face.
Edward Sterling lay injured beside his car.
The disguised man searched the passenger compartment.
Then another vehicle arrived.
The real Samuel stepped out.
He ran toward Edward.
The disguised attacker fled into the darkness.
Samuel knelt beside Evelyn’s father and attempted to save him.
The recording had exonerated him.
Then Edward reached up and pressed something into Samuel’s hand.
A small black envelope.
The video had no sound, but Edward’s lips moved.
Helena enhanced the image.
Samuel watched the words form.
PROTECT EVELYN FROM MY WIFE.
Evelyn’s eyes widened.
Her mother, Margaret Sterling, had supposedly died sixteen years earlier.
Samuel looked at her in disbelief.
“I never heard him say that.”
The computer played the sentence again.
PROTECT EVELYN FROM MY WIFE.
Then the memory card opened a hidden file none of them had noticed.
It contained a recent photograph taken inside a private nursing facility.
An elderly woman sat beside a window.
Her name appeared beneath the image.
MARGARET STERLING.
May you like
Evelyn’s mother was alive.
And the photograph had been taken three days earlier.
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