Chapter 2 - THE WIDOW’S PERFORMANCE
Camilla called emergency services eleven minutes after Victor disappeared.
She waited until Laurent had driven away.
Then she removed her dark glasses, rubbed water beneath her eyes and began screaming.
“My husband fell.”
Her voice shook with perfect panic.
“He rolled away from me.”
“I tried to stop him.”
The harbor police arrived first.
Camilla stood at the edge of the pier with her hands trembling.
She told them Victor had insisted on watching the yachts.
She claimed a sudden slope caused the wheelchair to move.
She said the brake must have failed.
No one initially questioned why Victor’s driver was absent.
No one asked why Camilla had brought him to an abandoned section of the marina.
She filled every silence with grief.
Divers entered the water.
They recovered the wheelchair twenty minutes later.
The steel weight was gone.
Mateo had removed the severed cable before guiding Victor into the tunnel.
The official rescue divers found no body.
The current was strong beneath the marina.
The harbor captain explained that Victor might have been carried toward open water.
Camilla covered her mouth.
“Please keep looking.”
Across the marina, hidden inside an old maintenance building, Victor watched the performance on a surveillance monitor.
Mateo helped him change into dry clothes.
A custom lightweight wheelchair waited beside the door.
Victor transferred himself into it without assistance.
His paralysis began after a helicopter crash eighteen months earlier.
The accident killed his pilot and damaged Victor’s lower spine.
Doctors said he would never walk again.
Camilla had remained beside him through rehabilitation.
She fed him when his hands shook.
She slept beside his hospital bed.
She promised that his disability changed nothing between them.
Victor had believed her until he discovered that the helicopter’s maintenance report had been altered.
The same company that serviced the aircraft had recently received money from Laurent Vale.
Victor never found enough proof to accuse them.
He began watching instead.
Three weeks earlier, his private investigator intercepted a message from Camilla.
The pier must look accidental.
That was when Victor hired Mateo.
“How long do you remain dead?” Mateo asked.
“Until the money moves.”
“What if she leaves the country?”
“She will not leave without the full ninety million.”
Victor opened another screen.
The contingency fund was real.
However, it was not an inheritance.
It was a protected investigative account created to expose anyone attempting to profit from his unauthorized death declaration.
Every transfer would be traced.
Every beneficiary would be recorded.
Every device accessing it would be copied.
Camilla believed she was opening a vault.
In reality, she was walking into a courtroom.
Victor contacted one person.
Elena Ward answered on the first ring.
She was his general counsel and the only executive who did not report through Laurent.
“Is he alive?” she asked.
Victor spoke quietly.
“I am.”
Elena released a breath.
“Thank God.”
“Do not tell anyone.”
“The police are preparing a public announcement.”
“Let them.”
“You want the world to believe you are dead?”
“I want Laurent and Camilla to believe it.”
Elena hesitated.
“There is another problem.”
“What?”
“Camilla filed emergency documents this morning.”
“What kind of documents?”
“She is claiming full control of Moreau Maritime.”
“She attached a medical declaration stating you were mentally incompetent before the accident.”
Victor stared at the screen.
“Who signed it?”
“Dr. Henri Armand.”
Victor knew the name.
Armand was the neurologist who managed his rehabilitation.
He had access to every medical report.
He could make Victor appear confused, unstable or incapable of directing the company.
Camilla had not planned only a murder.
She had planned to erase Victor’s authority before his body was even found.
A news alert appeared on the monitor.
BILLIONAIRE VICTOR MOREAU PRESUMED DEAD AFTER RIVIERA ACCIDENT.
Camilla stood before the cameras wearing a black coat someone had delivered to the marina.
She looked directly into the lens.
“My husband was the love of my life.”
Victor watched without blinking.
Then Mateo noticed movement on another camera.
Laurent had returned to the abandoned pier.
He carried a metal case.
He knelt near the railing and removed a small object hidden beneath the wood.
It was a recording device.
May you like
Victor recognized it.
Camilla had filmed the murder.
