Chapter 14 - The Twenty-Seven Percent
Federal agents entered Vance Holdings again that night.
This time, they knew what they were looking for.
They found Chloe locked inside an executive conference suite on the forty-first floor.
She was shaken.
Bruised.
But alive.
Beatrice was gone.
The security system showed her leaving twenty-three minutes before agents arrived.
She had used Arthur's private elevator.
The cameras in the garage had conveniently stopped recording.
Judge Shaw's promised forty-eight hours suddenly made sense.
Beatrice was not expecting immunity.
She was buying time.
The next morning, Evelyn appeared at the hospital with a laptop.
"The board meeting starts in thirty minutes."
"I'm not leaving Grace."
"You don't have to."
She turned the screen toward me.
"You can attend remotely."
I looked through the glass at my daughter.
Then at the board documents.
"Put me in."
At nine o'clock, twelve faces appeared on the screen.
Some looked frightened.
Some angry.
Some already calculating how to survive.
Beatrice sat at the head of the table.
She wore white.
Of course she did.
When my video feed appeared, her expression barely changed.
"Clara."
"Beatrice."
One director shifted uncomfortably.
"Mrs. Hayes, this is an internal corporate meeting."
Evelyn leaned toward my microphone.
"Clara Hayes is appearing as representative of the estate of Daniel Hayes and as guardian of Grace Hayes."
Beatrice smiled.
"The child has no vested voting authority yet."
"Maybe."
I placed my father's ownership claim in front of the camera.
"But my father's estate does."
The room changed.
Beatrice stopped smiling.
Evelyn explained the forged transfer.
The sealed claim.
The patent ownership.
The disputed shares.
Directors began whispering.
Beatrice lifted one hand.
"This is theatrics."
I looked at her.
"You invited me into your family because you thought marrying me to Julian would bury my father's claim."
No answer.
"You monitored me."
Silence.
"You paid a woman to seduce your son."
Several directors looked shocked.
"You fabricated a pregnancy."
More whispers.
"And you prepared guardianship papers for my unborn daughter."
Beatrice leaned toward the camera.
"Careful, Clara."
"No."
My voice remained calm.
"You spent years counting on everyone around you being careful."
Then Evelyn filed an emergency motion electronically.
The judge assigned to the corporate dispute issued a temporary restraining order less than ten minutes later.
No sale of disputed shares.
No restructuring.
No transfer.
Beatrice's face finally changed.
Only slightly.
But I saw it.
Fear.
The corporate secretary cleared his throat.
"Given the federal investigation and newly disputed ownership, I move to suspend the proposed transaction."
Seconded.
The vote passed.
Beatrice stared into the camera.
"You think you've won something."
"I stopped today's theft."
"You stopped nothing."
She disconnected.
Seconds later, alarms sounded in the boardroom.
The video shook.
People stood.
Someone shouted.
Then the feed went dark.
I gripped the laptop.
"What happened?"
Evelyn called the corporate secretary.
No answer.
Reed entered my hospital room.
"Fire alarm."
"At Vance?"
"Yes."
My pulse jumped.
"The servers."
"Already seized."
"The paper records?"
Reed looked grim.
"Some remained under seal on-site."
I understood.
Beatrice had lost the vote.
Now evidence was burning.
Then Reed's phone rang.
She listened.
Her face hardened.
"The fire started in the archival records floor."
"Accident?"
"No."
"How do you know?"
"Because someone disabled the sprinklers six minutes before ignition."
My hands curled.
"Beatrice?"
"We'll prove it."
Then Evelyn pointed toward my laptop.
The connection had returned.
One camera inside the boardroom was still live.
Smoke moved across the ceiling.
Directors were evacuating.
But one person remained seated at the far end.
Arthur.
I stared.
"He's supposed to be in federal custody."
Reed looked at the screen.
"He was released to home confinement this morning."
Arthur looked directly toward the boardroom camera.
Then he lifted a folder.
Across the front was written a single word.
May you like
ORCHARD.
And instead of leaving the burning building, he walked toward the archive floor.
