Chapter 3 - The Videos Maya Sent Me
“Turn the phone off.”
Lucy said it before I could move.
I powered Arthur’s device down.
My own phone stayed in my hand.
“Someone followed me?”
“Or tracked the phone.”
“The phone has been off.”
“It connected to the network.”
I looked toward the door.
The old lock suddenly seemed ridiculous.
I crossed the room and checked the hallway.
Empty.
At the far end, a stairwell door swung slowly closed.
I ran.
“Alexander!”
I took the stairs two at a time.
Outside, rain had softened to a drizzle.
A dark sedan pulled away from the curb.
I caught three digits of the plate.
Maybe.
I typed them into my phone.
Then I called a man named Raymond Cho.
Raymond had handled loss prevention and security for my company for nine years.
He answered immediately.
“Boss?”
“I need you to come alone.”
“Where?”
I gave him the address.
“Tell nobody.”
A pause.
“Not even executive office?”
“Especially not executive office.”
“I’ll be there in twenty.”
When I returned upstairs, Lucy was helping Dad sit more comfortably.
“You shouldn’t have run after them,” she said.
“I’m not letting someone stalk you.”
“You’re three years late on that instinct.”
I deserved it.
“Who knows you have Dad?”
“The clinic. A physical therapist. A pharmacist. Nobody connected to your family.”
“Maya?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Then how did they find the phone?”
Arthur pointed weakly toward the lockbox.
I opened it again.
The flash drive.
“Is this what they want?”
He nodded.
“What’s on it?”
He tried speaking.
Nothing came.
Lucy handed him a pad.
His writing since the stroke was slow, shaky, barely legible.
He formed one word.
COPIES.
“Copies of what?”
Another word.
INVOICES.
I inserted the drive into an offline laptop Lucy kept beneath the table.
There were folders by year.
Four years.
Hundreds of PDFs.
Purchase orders.
Vendor contracts.
Bank transfer summaries.
I recognized our internal forms.
Many had my electronic approval.
Except I had never seen them.
“This is impossible.”
Lucy leaned over.
“Look at the approval timestamps.”
2:14 a.m.
3:08 a.m.
11:57 p.m.
Dates when I was traveling.
One authorization had occurred while I was giving a keynote in Las Vegas.
Someone had used my credentials.
“Who had access?”
“Your executive office.”
Maya.
My assistant.
IT administration.
Former CFO Samuel Price.
I opened the vendor ownership data.
Hawthorne Consulting was registered to a holding company.
Northstar to another.
Crescent Management to another.
Each ultimately connected to an address in Evanston.
I recognized it.
“Maya’s condo.”
Lucy did not react.
She already knew.
“How long have you known?”
“Arthur showed me.”
“And you never went to police?”
“Arthur didn’t want to move before he had enough evidence.”
“That almost killed him.”
“I know.”
Raymond arrived nineteen minutes later.
He filled the doorway.
Former Marine.
Six feet four.
Calm under pressure.
He looked at me, then Lucy, then Dad.
His expression changed.
“Mr. Vance?”
Arthur raised his hand slightly.
Raymond stared.
Then he looked at me.
“I thought he was at Sunrise Harbor.”
“So did I.”
I showed him the photograph and messages.
Raymond examined the phone.
“I’ll check cameras nearby.”
“I want a secure apartment tonight.”
“For how many?”
“Three.”
Lucy looked at me.
“Two.”
“You’re coming.”
“No.”
“Whoever sent this knows the building.”
“I’m not leaving Arthur.”
“Neither am I.”
Her expression shifted.
It was the first time I had said something that sounded less like an order.
Raymond arranged a private medical transport and a furnished apartment owned by one of our corporate partners but not listed publicly under my name.
Before we left, Lucy packed carefully.
Dad’s medicines.
Documents.
Two sweaters.
A framed photograph.
I saw it.
Our wedding.
Lucy and me.
Dad between us.
All three laughing.
“You kept that?”
“It belongs to Arthur.”
Still.
I carried it to the car.
That evening, after a doctor examined Dad and confirmed he was stable, I sat in the apartment kitchen with Raymond.
“I need to verify every transfer.”
“You have forensic accountants.”
“I don’t know who is compromised.”
“I know someone independent.”
“Call them.”
Raymond studied me.
“What aren’t you telling me?”
“Lucy may have been framed.”
He was silent.
Raymond had been part of the security team the night I expelled her.
“I walked her out.”
“I know.”
“She kept saying the records were altered.”
“I know.”
“You told us not to listen.”
“I know.”
That third one hurt most.
Raymond rubbed his jaw.
“Then we start from the beginning.”
We did.
At midnight, he found the first major inconsistency.
The original transaction that had supposedly proven Lucy stole money was initiated from an executive credential.
Not Lucy’s.
Mine.
But my credentials had logged in through an internal office machine while I was in Toronto.
Raymond located the machine ID.
Executive Administration Station 04.
Maya’s office.
I stared at it.
“Can you prove who was at the keyboard?”
“Maybe badge logs.”
We pulled archived access data.
Three years old.
Most records purged.
But one backup existed because the building’s insurer required incident retention.
Raymond found the date.
Maya entered the office at 9:43 p.m.
The fraudulent transfer occurred at 10:12.
She left at 10:31.
No one else entered.
I sat back.
“My sister framed my wife.”
“Looks that way.”
“Why?”
“We don’t know yet.”
I looked through the living-room doorway.
Lucy slept in a chair beside Dad.
Even now.
Even after everything.
I thought about the photographs Maya had sent me from Sunrise Harbor.
“Find the man in the videos.”
Raymond exported frames.
Facial recognition was not something we could simply run legally against everyone, but private investigators had other ways.
He searched facility marketing.
Three hours later, he found the man.
Walter Briggs.
Resident at Sunrise Harbor.
His daughter had posted birthday photographs publicly.
Maya had filmed him from angles that concealed his identity.
Sometimes wearing sweaters Dad owned.
“How did she get Dad’s clothes?”
Lucy heard me.
She had entered quietly.
“When Arthur was hospitalized, Maya took a suitcase from his condo.”
I looked at her.
“You knew?”
“I suspected when you showed me the videos weeks later.”
“How did you see them?”
“Your cousin Peter sent one to Arthur.”
Peter believed Dad had been transferred.
Lucy recognized the clothes immediately.
I felt sick.
Maya had constructed an entire artificial life for our father.
Videos.
Updates.
Invoices.
The illusion worked because I never checked.
Morning came gray and cold.
At 7:12, Maya called.
I let it ring.
At 7:14, she called again.
Then texted.
WHERE ARE YOU?
At 7:22:
SUNRISE SAYS DAD PASSED EARLY THIS MORNING.
I showed Lucy.
Her face went pale.
“She’s killing him on paper.”
Arthur was asleep ten feet away.
I called Maya.
She answered crying.
Perfectly.
“Alex.”
“What happened?”
“He went peacefully.”
I closed my eyes.
“Were you there?”
“Yes.”
Lie.
“Did you see him?”
“I held his hand.”
Lie.
“Did he say anything?”
“He couldn’t.”
Lie built upon lie.
“I’m sorry I didn’t get you there.”
Lie.
I looked at Raymond.
He recorded the call with counsel’s guidance.
“What happens now?” I asked.
“We arrange the funeral.”
“When?”
“Fast. Dad didn’t want a fuss.”
“How fast?”
“Friday.”
Three days.
“Open casket?”
A pause.
“No. The stroke... changed him.”
Convenient.
“I understand.”
“I need you to sign some estate documents today.”
There it was.
“What documents?”
“Dad’s trust has provisions that activate immediately.”
“What provisions?”
“Nothing complicated. I’ll bring them.”
“Come to my office at noon.”
Lucy shook her head.
I covered the phone.
Maya said, “Perfect.”
After we hung up, Lucy said, “You’re confronting her.”
“No.”
“Then why invite her?”
“Because I need to know what she wants me to sign.”
Raymond nodded.
“We control the room.”
At 11:54, Maya entered my executive conference suite wearing black.
She had dressed for mourning.
For a man who was still alive.
Her eyes were red.
Either she had been crying or she knew how to make them look that way.
She hugged me.
I forced myself not to pull away.
“I’m so sorry.”
“Me too.”
She placed a leather folder on the table.
“Dad’s attorney prepared these.”
“Which attorney?”
“David Mercer.”
I knew Mercer.
Or thought I did.
Maya slid the documents toward me.
The first was an acknowledgment of death.
The second concerned trust administration.
The third transferred Arthur’s remaining voting shares in Vance Contemporary.
To Maya.
I looked up.
“Dad left you his shares?”
“He wanted me to protect the company.”
“How many?”
“Seventeen percent.”
Combined with shares she already held, it would make Maya our largest family voting bloc after me.
“Why do I need to sign?”
“As co-trustee, you acknowledge the transfer.”
I turned the page.
Something else caught my attention.
The signature attributed to Arthur.
Dated four days earlier.
Four days earlier, my father had barely been able to hold a spoon.
Yet this signature was smooth.
Strong.
Perfect.
Too perfect.
I looked at Maya.
She smiled sadly.
“Dad wanted this settled before he died.”
Behind the mirrored glass, Raymond was recording everything.
I reached for the pen.
Maya relaxed.
Then my phone vibrated.
A message from Raymond.
DO NOT SIGN.
Another message followed immediately.
MERCER ISN’T ARTHUR’S ATTORNEY.
May you like
And then a third:
THE REAL ATTORNEY JUST CALLED. ARTHUR CHANGED HIS TRUST SIX MONTHS AGO.
