Chapter 3 - Plan B
The scream came from the first floor.
Daniel drew his weapon and ran.
Vincent followed despite Harold grabbing his arm.
“You are not going downstairs.”
“My house. My family.”
“You almost had a medical crisis three days ago.”
“And somebody almost finished the job ten minutes ago.”
Vincent pulled free.
Rosa stayed behind with Lily and one security officer while Arthur and Harold followed Vincent.
Halfway down the grand staircase, they saw a housemaid trembling beside the front hall.
A man lay facedown near the security office.
Daniel knelt beside him.
“Alive,” he called. “Hit from behind.”
It was Marco, one of the guards.
The security office door was open.
Inside, the equipment racks blinked.
Daniel entered first.
“Someone restored the cameras.”
Vincent looked at the monitors.
Most showed empty hallways.
One showed the driveway.
Police vehicles were approaching the gate.
Another showed the rear service entrance.
The door stood open.
“Samuel?” Vincent asked.
Daniel shook his head.
“Maybe.”
Arthur pointed toward another monitor.
“Wait.”
A figure crossed the kitchen.
Female.
Blonde.
Celeste.
Vincent turned.
“She was upstairs.”
Daniel swore.
They hurried toward the kitchen.
Celeste stood near the pantry holding something in her hand.
A flash drive.
Daniel raised his weapon.
“Put it down.”
She froze.
Vincent stared at her.
“What are you doing?”
“Trying to prove I didn’t do this.”
“How?”
“There’s a hidden camera.”
Daniel frowned.
“What hidden camera?”
Celeste pointed toward a smoke detector.
“Samuel installed it months ago.”
“How do you know?”
“Because he used it to watch me.”
Vincent’s stomach tightened.
She removed the flash drive from a small recording unit hidden behind a pantry panel.
“When I realized what he was planning, I started keeping copies.”
“What was he planning?”
Celeste looked at Vincent.
“To take your company.”
Police arrived before she could say more.
Detective Mara Quinn took control of the scene.
She was forty, direct, observant, and unimpressed by wealth.
Within thirty minutes, the bedroom medication, fake passport, cash, syringe case, contract documents, hidden phone, and flash drive were all entered into evidence.
Samuel remained missing.
Mara questioned Celeste first.
Vincent insisted on being present until Mara ordered him out.
“You’re either a victim, a witness, or possibly part of a complicated family dispute,” she told him. “Whichever one you are, you don’t get to run my interview.”
Vincent almost argued.
Then he saw Lily sitting in the hallway beside Rosa.
He stopped.
A four-year-old had shown more restraint than he had.
He sat beside her instead.
“Are you scared?” he asked.
Lily nodded.
“So am I.”
She looked surprised.
“Grown-ups get scared?”
“More often than children think.”
She considered that.
Then held out her doll.
“You can hold Lucy.”
Vincent smiled.
“I think Lucy should stay with you.”
“She makes people brave.”
He accepted the doll.
For twenty minutes, one of the richest men in the state sat outside his own library holding a rag doll while police questioned the woman he had planned to marry.
Eventually Mara emerged.
“Mr. Moretti.”
Vincent stood.
“What did she say?”
“That isn’t how this works.”
“You know I’ll find out.”
“I’m aware rich people have lawyers.”
Arthur coughed discreetly.
Mara ignored him.
“But there’s one thing I need clarified. Did Samuel Vance have authority to negotiate company restructuring?”
“Yes.”
“Access to your legal drafts?”
“Through Arthur’s firm and our board portal.”
“Could he alter them?”
Arthur answered.
“Not without leaving an electronic record.”
Mara looked at him.
“Then let’s find the record.”
An hour later, digital forensics technicians arrived.
The preliminary medication analysis came faster than expected.
Harold found Vincent in the breakfast room.
“The liquid in your glass contained a sedative.”
Vincent closed his eyes.
“How much?”
“Enough to make you disoriented. Possibly unconscious.”
“Fatal?”
“Not necessarily.”
“Not necessarily?”
“Combined with your prescriptions, your age, your recent arrhythmia—there was risk.”
Vincent stared toward the window.
So Lily had saved him.
Maybe not from certain death.
But from being rendered helpless.
At noon.
Before a contract signing.
“Would I have been capable of reading documents?”
Harold’s expression hardened.
“No.”
“Could I have signed?”
“Yes.”
That answer chilled him more.
Arthur joined them.
“We found the alteration history.”
“And?”
“The permanent-control clause was inserted at 2:13 this morning.”
“Account?”
Arthur hesitated.
“Yours.”
Vincent looked at him.
“That’s impossible.”
“Your administrator credentials were used.”
“Where?”
“From this house.”
Vincent thought of Lily seeing Celeste with the medicine.
“Celeste?”
“Could be.”
“Or Samuel.”
“Could be.”
Vincent hated uncertainty.
For decades, he had built his fortune by reducing uncertainty to numbers.
Market exposure.
Voting shares.
Interest rates.
Probability.
But betrayal had no spreadsheet.
Mara entered.
“We need to talk.”
She placed a photograph on the table.
It showed the cash from Celeste’s trunk.
“Serial numbers trace to a Moretti Consolidated reserve account.”
Vincent looked at Arthur.
Arthur frowned.
“That requires dual authorization.”
Mara placed another sheet down.
“Samuel Vance authorized the withdrawal.”
Vincent leaned closer.
“And the second authorization?”
Mara looked at him.
“Vincent Moretti.”
Vincent’s jaw tightened.
“Forged.”
“Digitally.”
“Where?”
“Your private office.”
Someone had used his credentials repeatedly.
The contract.
The money.
Possibly more.
Mara continued.
“Celeste claims Samuel brought her into your life intentionally.”
Vincent stared at her.
“She says she initially agreed.”
Arthur looked away.
Mara watched Vincent carefully.
“According to her, she believed you had framed her brother Gabriel for embezzlement and caused his death. Samuel promised evidence.”
Vincent swallowed.
“And later?”
“She says she fell in love with you.”
Arthur sighed.
Vincent’s expression did not change.
Mara continued.
“She claims she tried to withdraw from Samuel’s plan.”
“When?”
“Two months ago.”
“Yet she gave me the medicine.”
“She admits switching the bottles.”
Vincent’s face hardened.
“Then why are we discussing whether she’s guilty?”
“Because she says the bottle she intended to give you contained your normal medicine.”
Vincent stared at her.
“What?”
“She says she switched labels because Samuel instructed her to make it look as though you had accidentally taken the wrong prescription and become confused. She claims she didn’t know anyone replaced the contents with a sedative.”
“That sounds extremely convenient.”
“Yes.”
“But possible?”
“Yes.”
Mara leaned closer.
“The bigger question is why Samuel wanted you merely confused if the contract already transferred power after incapacity.”
Vincent considered it.
“He needed me alive.”
“Maybe.”
“Until the signing.”
“Maybe.”
Arthur’s phone rang.
He looked at the screen.
“My office.”
Vincent nodded.
Arthur answered.
His expression changed immediately.
“What?”
He walked several feet away.
“When?”
Another pause.
“No, don’t touch anything. Call the police.”
He ended the call.
Mara stepped closer.
“What happened?”
Arthur looked at Vincent.
“My office was broken into.”
“What was taken?”
“One file.”
Vincent already knew.
“Gabriel Bennett.”
Arthur nodded.
Mara stared between them.
“Tell me everything about him.”
Vincent sat.
Fifteen years earlier, Gabriel Bennett had been a twenty-seven-year-old forensic accountant in Moretti Consolidated’s finance division.
He discovered irregular transfers.
Eight million dollars disappeared.
Samuel conducted the investigation.
The trail pointed to Gabriel.
Vincent fired him and pressed charges.
Gabriel vanished.
Six months later, authorities in another country reported a suicide matching his identity.
Vincent had accepted it.
Until today.
Mara asked, “Who benefited from the missing money?”
“No one knew where it went.”
“What did Samuel say?”
“That Gabriel had moved it through offshore accounts.”
“Were they found?”
“No.”
Mara stared at Vincent.
“And that didn’t bother you?”
“It did.”
“But you trusted Samuel.”
“Yes.”
She said nothing.
She didn’t need to.
Vincent had spent a lifetime claiming he understood people.
Yet perhaps Samuel had manipulated him for fifteen years.
Daniel entered carrying a laptop.
“We recovered part of the deleted security footage.”
Vincent stood.
“Show me.”
They gathered around the screen.
The video timestamp read 12:07 a.m.
Celeste entered Vincent’s bedroom carrying bottles.
Exactly as Lily described.
She changed labels.
Vincent’s face turned cold.
Then she left.
At 12:14, the door opened again.
A man entered.
His face remained outside the camera angle.
He walked to the medicine tray.
Removed one bottle.
Replaced it.
Then left.
Mara paused the image.
“Can we identify him?”
Daniel enlarged the frame.
Only a sleeve and hand were visible.
Dark suit.
Silver cuff links.
Arthur looked toward Vincent.
Vincent stared at the screen.
He knew those cuff links.
He had given them to Samuel on the twentieth anniversary of his employment.
“Samuel,” Vincent said.
But Daniel shook his head.
“Look closer.”
He zoomed in.
The cuff link carried the Moretti crest.
Vincent had commissioned only three pairs.
One for himself.
One for Samuel.
And one for his son Anthony.
Vincent stopped breathing.
Anthony had died nine years ago.
Mara noticed his expression.
“Who else owned those?”
Vincent whispered, “My son.”
Nobody spoke.
Vincent stared at the grainy hand.
Anthony could not have entered that room.
Unless someone possessed his belongings.
“Where are your son’s effects?” Mara asked.
“In storage. Locked.”
Daniel’s phone rang.
He answered.
“Yes?”
His face changed.
“When?”
He looked directly at Vincent.
“We have an alarm at the storage property.”
Vincent felt cold.
Daniel continued listening.
Then slowly lowered the phone.
“What?” Vincent demanded.
“The door was opened twenty minutes ago.”
“Who opened it?”
Daniel swallowed.
“The access code belonged to Anthony.”
Vincent stared at him.
“My son has been dead nine years.”
Daniel nodded.
“I know.”
Then his phone buzzed again.
A photograph appeared.
It had been sent from the security camera at the storage building.
A man stood inside Anthony’s private room.
His back faced the camera.
He was wearing Anthony’s old coat.
Vincent enlarged the image.
On the wall in front of the stranger was a photograph of Vincent and Anthony.
The stranger had written something across it in red marker.
May you like
Vincent read the words.
YOU BURIED THE WRONG SON.
