Chapter 12 - What Margaret Hid
Richard stared at his mother.
"Why would I go to prison?"
Margaret's lips trembled once, then hardened again.
"Because Nathan built the fraud around your credentials. Every loan. Every transfer. Every falsified valuation. Your name is on them."
"You knew they were fake."
"I knew after Julia showed me."
"Then why didn't you go to the police?"
"Because the company would have collapsed before anyone proved you were innocent. Thousands of employees. Pension funds. Leo's inheritance."
Richard laughed without humor.
"So you protected the company."
"I protected this family."
"You always say that when you mean control."
Margaret flinched.
Anna watched from near the door with Leo asleep against her shoulder.
"What happened the night Julia died?" Anna asked.
Margaret looked at her.
"Nathan called me. He said Julia had taken documents and was driving to meet federal investigators. He told me if she handed them over, Richard would be arrested before morning."
Richard went still.
"What did you do?"
"I called Julia. I begged her to wait."
"That's all?"
Margaret looked away.
"I sent a driver to bring her home."
"Which driver?"
"Cal Mercer."
Richard knew him. Former company security. Dead six months ago from cancer.
"Did he cause the crash?"
"He swore he didn't. He said Julia's car drifted across the center line before he reached her."
Anna thought of the sedative.
"Because she was drugged."
Margaret nodded.
"Nathan had already arranged it."
"How do you know?"
"Because Vanessa told me after the funeral."
Vanessa's face went white.
"I told you Dr. Porter had been paid. I didn't know Nathan planned the crash."
Margaret's anger surfaced.
"You knew enough to take his money."
"And you knew enough to bury it."
Richard slammed his palm against the wall.
"Stop!"
Leo stirred against Anna.
Everyone quieted.
The detective asked the question that mattered.
"Where is Nathan now?"
Margaret looked toward Richard.
"He wants the original corporate audit. Julia made one copy he could never find."
"Where?"
"I don't know."
Anna suddenly remembered the storage unit.
The blue raincoat.
Julia had hung it there for a reason.
"Leo's raincoat," she said.
Richard frowned.
"What?"
"At the storage unit. It was the only personal item. Everything else was paper."
Police returned to Unit 314.
Inside the lining of the blue raincoat they found a microSD card.
The audit was there.
So was a scanned letter from Nathan to Dr. Porter authorizing monthly payments.
Enough to connect him to the drugging.
Enough to connect him to the fraud.
Richard almost smiled.
Then Tom opened the final file.
It was a court document.
Not filed.
Draft only.
A petition to remove Richard as Leo's guardian.
Nathan had prepared it sixteen months ago.
The proposed replacement guardian was not Vanessa.
Not Margaret.
It was Anna Morales.
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