Chapter 12 - Fire in the Archive
Smoke poured under the archive door.
Leo grabbed an extinguisher while two guards forced the lock.
I pushed past them.
"Bennett!" Clara shouted behind me.
The room was not fully burning yet. One shelf had caught. Papers curled black at the edges. Sprinklers hammered water from the ceiling.
On the floor lay a man in a maintenance jacket.
Derek Voss.
Marcus's investigator.
He was conscious, coughing, one hand burned red.
Leo pinned him before he could stand.
"Don't move."
Derek laughed weakly.
"Too late."
I looked at the shelf.
The fire had started where we stored old trust files.
"What did you destroy?"
Derek smiled.
"Ask your uncle."
Leo pulled a phone from his pocket.
On the screen was a photograph taken minutes earlier.
The codicil.
My stomach dropped.
I reached inside my jacket.
The envelope was still there.
"He only got a picture," Clara said.
Derek coughed again. "Picture is enough."
"For what?"
He closed his eyes.
The answer arrived by email three minutes later.
A message from Marcus to the entire Hale Meridian board.
SUBJECT: FRAUDULENT TRUST DOCUMENT DISCOVERED.
Attached was the photograph of the codicil and a legal memo claiming the signatures were forged after my father's death.
Marcus had moved first.
By morning, he planned to frame the real document as fake.
I crouched in front of Derek.
"Who changed the medication?"
His smile vanished.
"I don't know."
"Who cloned Clara's badge?"
Silence.
"Who sent you to June's house?"
His eyes shifted.
"You don't have enough."
"Police will decide that."
He laughed again. "Marcus owns half the people who would investigate him."
Clara stepped closer.
"Then why are you scared?"
Derek looked at her.
She pointed to his phone.
"Because men like you don't keep pictures unless you're protecting yourself."
His face changed.
Smart.
Clara had seen it.
Leo opened a hidden folder on the phone.
Dozens of audio files.
Payments.
Messages.
One recording dated three days earlier.
Marcus's voice:
"If Eleanor talks at the board meeting, make sure she looks confused. I don't care how."
Mother had been right.
This was never only about Clara.
Then another file appeared.
Twelve years old.
The date of my father's death.
Leo pressed play.
Derek's younger voice asked, "You want the bridge car handled tonight?"
Marcus answered, "Before Henry reaches Price."
May you like
Nobody moved.
My father had not died in an accident.
