Chapter 13 - Diane’s Insurance Policy
The recorder contained seventeen hours of audio.
Diane had recorded everybody.
Mark.
Lucy.
Pike.
Victor.
Even Jack.
At first, the recordings seemed like insurance.
Proof she could use if anyone turned on her.
Then Ruiz found the conversation that explained everything.
Victor’s voice:
You keep too much. Burn the files.
Diane:
No. If you ever try to pin this on me, I send copies to the state.
Pike:
You send anything and you lose Mark.
Diane:
I already have Mark.
Victor laughed.
Diane continued.
The company is the point. Once the marriage is clean and Lucy is legally gone, Mark signs over operating control. Then we stop needing him.
Mark paused the recording.
“Operating control?”
Sam Ortega confirmed it later.
Diane had prepared corporate resolutions giving herself authority if Mark became “medically unavailable.”
She had also increased Mark’s life insurance.
By two million dollars.
Beneficiary:
Diane Mercer Nolan.
Lucy stared at him.
“Did you sign that?”
Mark remembered a stack of benefits forms.
“I signed something.”
Jack looked horrified.
“She was going to kill Dad?”
Ruiz said carefully, “We don’t know that.”
Lucy did not look convinced.
The next recording made it worse.
Diane speaking privately with Pike.
Mark’s becoming a problem. He keeps asking about the city payments.
Pike:
Then slow him down.
Diane:
Like Lucy?
Pike:
Different solution.
Diane:
I don’t want him hurt.
Pike:
You wanted Lucy gone.
Diane:
That was different.
Pike:
It always is until it isn’t.
The recording ended.
Mark stared at the wall.
Lucy said, “You need protection.”
He almost laughed.
“From my wife?”
Lucy’s expression did not change.
“From the woman you thought was your wife.”
That evening, police placed Mark and Jack at a secure hotel.
Lucy stayed in the room next door.
At midnight, Mark found Jack sitting in the hallway between the rooms.
“Can’t sleep?”
Jack shook his head.
“Which one is home now?”
Mark sat beside him.
“I don’t know.”
“Is Mom coming back?”
“I hope so.”
“To us?”
Mark looked down.
“I don’t know if there is an ‘us’ like before.”
Jack’s eyes filled.
“Because you married Diane?”
“Because a lot happened before Diane too.”
Jack leaned against him.
“You should say sorry better.”
Mark gave a weak smile.
“I’m working on it.”
His phone buzzed.
A security alert from his company office.
Front door opened.
2:13 a.m.
Sam Ortega was supposed to be the only person with access.
Mark called him.
No answer.
Then a second alert arrived.
SERVER ROOM — TEMPERATURE CRITICAL.
Lucy opened her hotel door.
“What happened?”
Mark stood.
“Someone’s inside the company.”
And if they destroyed the servers, they could erase the financial trail before federal agents finished copying it.
— — —
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