Chapter 5 - THE MISSING MAID
I left two guards outside Clara’s hospital room and returned to the estate with Detective Monroe.
Clara did not want me to go.
I did not want to leave her.
But Evelyn might be injured somewhere on my property.
The old guesthouse stood beyond the east garden.
It had not been used since renovations began the previous year.
Marcus met us outside.
“The door was locked from the outside.”
He handed me disposable gloves.
Inside, the air smelled of dust and bleach.
A broken tray lay near the kitchen entrance.
Dark stains marked the tile beneath it.
Detective Monroe examined them.
“Someone tried to clean this.”
A chair had been overturned beside the wall.
A strip of white uniform fabric was caught on a nail.
Evelyn’s purse was discovered inside a cabinet.
Her phone was gone.
Marcus checked the hidden security recordings.
The guesthouse camera showed Damian leading Evelyn inside four nights earlier.
Sienna followed them.
Thirty minutes later, Sienna emerged alone.
She was crying.
Damian exited carrying a rolled carpet.
Two temporary guards helped him place it inside a maintenance van.
The van left through the service gate.
My stomach turned.
“Find the vehicle.”
Marcus already had.
The maintenance company’s GPS records showed that the van traveled to an abandoned warehouse owned by one of Damian’s shell corporations.
Police units were sent immediately.
Evelyn was found alive inside a locked office.
She had a fractured wrist, bruised ribs, and a head injury.
Damian had imprisoned her after she threatened to expose what was happening to Clara.
Evelyn told police she had secretly recorded several conversations.
Her phone had been taken, but she uploaded the audio files to an online account.
One conversation captured Helena ordering Sienna to increase the sedative in Clara’s tea.
Another captured Damian discussing a forged medical report.
The plan was to declare Clara mentally unstable.
They intended to place her in a private treatment facility before I returned.
Once she was confined, Damian would present me with documents claiming Clara had voluntarily transferred her estate voting rights to him.
The signatures were already prepared.
“They needed Clara removed before your plane landed,” Detective Monroe said.
“They believed I would accept their story.”
“They believed you would be too busy protecting the company to investigate your family.”
They had misunderstood the foundation of everything I built.
Clara had worked two jobs when I launched my first company.
She paid rent while I lived on instant noodles and promises.
She sold her grandmother’s bracelet to cover my first employee’s salary.
There would be no company without her.
There would be no estate.
No fortune.
No Julian Vale worth deceiving.
Marcus approached with an evidence tablet.
“We found something else in Helena’s suite.”
The screen displayed a legal document.
May you like
It was a petition for emergency control of my assets.
The document claimed I had died overseas three days earlier.
