Chapter 17 - THE FULL RECORDING
Howard’s archive had one file investigators almost missed.
It was corrupted.
Technicians recovered it six weeks later.
The recording was from Michael’s final week.
He was meeting Howard in a parking garage.
Michael sounded exhausted.
“They’re doing something to me.”
Howard asked, “What?”
“I don’t know.”
“What do you mean?”
“My heart races after coffee at work.”
I stopped breathing.
Michael continued.
“Headaches.
Sweating.
Twice this week.”
“See a doctor.”
“I did.”
“What did he say?”
“Nothing obvious.”
Then Michael whispered.
“I stopped drinking anything from the office kitchen.
Symptoms stopped.”
Howard cursed.
“Michael, leave.”
“I can’t.”
“Leave the company.”
“If I leave, Preston knows I’m scared.”
“You are scared.”
“Yes.”
The recording cut.
Then resumed.
Howard said, “Who prepares your coffee?”
Michael answered.
“Executive service staff.”
“Who controls them?”
“Margaret.”
My hands went numb.
Cole warned me again.
The recording did not prove poison.
But it established Michael suspected exposure before death.
Investigators revisited former Vale executive service employees.
One woman remembered being told to use a specific powdered “energy additive” in Michael’s coffee.
“Who told you?”
She hesitated.
“Mrs. Vale.”
Margaret.
“Did she tell you what it was?”
“She said Mr. Bennett was tired and had asked for it.”
Michael had never asked.
The employee stopped using it after Michael complained about the taste.
Two days later, another staff member took over.
That staff member had died years earlier.
No one could prove exactly what was given.
But Margaret had lied repeatedly about having no interaction with Michael.
Prosecutors now had something stronger.
Conspiracy.
Tampering.
Witness intimidation.
Potential poisoning-related charges.
Still not murder.
The lack of biological evidence remained enormous.
I hated that.
Then Cole said something I needed to hear.
“The law is not a machine that produces perfect truth.”
“I know.”
“No.”
He looked at me.
“You keep waiting for one charge to make everything complete.”
He was right.
Michael’s death might never be legally rewritten.
But Preston and Margaret could still be held accountable for what could be proven.
I looked at Sophie through the glass wall of the waiting room.
She was coloring.
Alive.
Safe.
That was the case happening now.
May you like
I could not save Michael eight years later.
I could save what came after him.
