Chapter 17 - The Lawyer’s Secret
The warning from the safe house was short: DO NOT TRUST MARTIN.
Claire confronted Martin Hale before midnight. He did not deny that he had once worked for Richard Vale.
“Three years,” he said. “Then I learned what he was building.”
“You helped build it.”
“Yes.”
Claire wanted to hate the answer, but Martin placed a sealed affidavit on the table. Samuel Bennett had signed it the day before he died. It named Vale, shell companies, bribed executives, and Martin as a cooperating witness.
“Why didn’t you file it?” Claire asked.
“Vale sent me photographs of my grandson walking to school.”
Fear again. Another person who had chosen silence and called it protection.
Officer Nolan’s phone rang. She listened, then looked at Claire.
“We found Evelyn.”
“Where?”
“Bennett Memorial Hospital. Old records basement.”
They arrived to find Evelyn alive beside Vivian. Between them sat a small amber prescription bottle.
Evelyn held it with gloved hands. “This belonged to your father.”
May you like
Claire stared at it.
Vivian’s voice was barely audible. “And the pills inside were not what Samuel was prescribed.”
