Chapter 5 - THE BACKUP ROBERT BUILT
Vanessa looked at the empty screens.
Relief moved across her face.
“You have no proof.”
Daniel turned toward me.
I opened the cabinet beneath the security panel.
Inside was a small metal box.
Robert’s initials were engraved on the lid.
Vanessa’s relief disappeared.
“My husband never trusted a single copy of anything.”
I removed the backup drive.
The cameras automatically stored recordings in three locations.
One inside the house.
One inside the detached garage.
One inside a safe deposit server managed by Robert’s old law firm.
Vanessa had deleted only the easiest copy.
Police entered through the front hall.
Daniel gave them Chloe’s phone.
He showed them the clinic invoice.
I handed over the backup drive.
Vanessa tried to leave.
An officer stopped her.
“This is a family argument,” she said.
The officer looked at my uneven hair and the cut near my ear.
“Did you consent to having your hair cut?”
“No.”
Vanessa rolled her eyes.
“She is being dramatic.”
The officer examined the scissors.
One blade still carried strands of my hair.
“Did you physically restrain her?”
“No.”
Chloe spoke from behind her sister.
“You held her shoulder.”
Vanessa turned.
“You little traitor.”
Chloe began crying again.
The officer separated them.
Daniel called the company attorney.
No answer.
He called three board members.
Only one picked up.
Her name was Rachel Kim.
She had worked with Daniel since the company’s earliest days.
Her voice sounded frightened.
“Daniel, Marcus presented evidence that you moved company money into private accounts.”
“I did not.”
“He showed signed authorizations.”
“They were forged.”
“The board voted seven to two.”
“What merger did he propose?”
Rachel hesitated.
“Vale Dynamics.”
Marcus’s family investment company.
The merger would transfer Mercer Systems into a new corporation.
Marcus would control forty percent.
Vanessa would receive ten percent through a private holding company.
Daniel would become a minority shareholder in the company he built.
“When is the final vote?” he asked.
“Tomorrow morning.”
Daniel looked at me.
“They need your proxy.”
I nodded.
“That is why they wanted the house papers signed tonight.”
The proxy form had been hidden among the property transfer documents.
If I signed, Vanessa would control my voting shares.
Without them, the merger could not pass.
Vanessa heard us.
Her face became hard.
“You think your mother can stop this?”
Daniel turned toward her.
“She already has.”
A police officer searched Vanessa’s handbag.
Inside was a sealed envelope addressed to the company board.
The proxy document carried my signature.
It had already been notarized.
The notary was Marcus Vale’s younger brother.
I had never met him.
Daniel looked at the forged signature.
Then at Vanessa.
“You did not come here to ask her to sign.”
“You came here to make her humiliation look like evidence of mental instability.”
Vanessa smiled faintly.
“Tomorrow, the board will see an old woman crying over a haircut.”
“They will not see a victim.”
“They will see someone unfit to control corporate shares.”
An officer placed handcuffs around her wrists.
She remained calm.
As she was led toward the door, she looked at Daniel.
May you like
“You still think Marcus needs me free to finish this.”
The company’s final merger vote was less than eighteen hours away.
