Chapter 9 - What Emily's Father Left Behind
Emily did not go alone.
She and Alexander entered Richard's old residence through separate doors.
Thomas Vale was waiting.
Older.
Thinner.
Alive.
He admitted he'd faked his death after discovering Charles intended to eliminate everyone connected to Northbridge.
“Did you kill my father?” Emily asked.
“No.”
“Did you threaten my mother?”
“Yes.”
Emily slapped him.
Thomas accepted it.
“I deserved that.”
“You terrified her.”
“I was trying to make her stop investigating.”
“You could have told her the truth.”
“And Charles would have killed all three of you.”
Thomas revealed that Daniel's crash had been engineered.
Brake line.
Service garage.
Paid mechanic.
But Charles had not personally issued the order.
The authorization came through Richard Whitmore's credentials.
Alexander went rigid.
“My father?”
Thomas shook his head.
“His credentials.”
“Who used them?”
“I never proved it.”
Emily remembered Daniel's rule.
Numbers before names.
Credentials could be stolen.
Signatures forged.
People framed.
Just like her.
Thomas handed her a cassette recorder.
“Daniel gave me this.”
Emily pressed play.
Her father's voice filled the room.
If anything happens to me, the person behind Northbridge is closer to Richard than he realizes.
Emily looked at Alexander.
The recording continued.
Charles knows about the money, but he's not the beginning of it.
Alexander whispered, “Not the beginning?”
Daniel named another person.
Eleanor Whitmore.
Alexander's grandmother.
The founder's widow.
Still alive.
Ninety-one years old.
Living privately in Connecticut.
Alexander looked devastated.
Emily turned off the recording.
“We need to speak to her.”
They drove there the following morning.
Eleanor received them in a sunroom.
She recognized Emily immediately.
“Daniel's daughter.”
Emily sat opposite her.
“You knew my father?”
“Yes.”
“Did you create Northbridge?”
Eleanor didn't answer immediately.
Then:
“Yes.”
Alexander stood.
“Grandmother—”
“Sit.”
He did.
Eleanor explained that Northbridge began legally as a mechanism to protect Whitmore during a financial crisis.
Then she allowed accounting manipulations.
Temporary, she claimed.
But Charles discovered them.
Expanded them.
Weaponized them.
Daniel found the original records.
Richard wanted disclosure.
Eleanor refused.
“Did you order my father killed?” Emily asked.
“No.”
“Do you know who did?”
Eleanor's eyes filled with something Emily hadn't expected.
Fear.
“I suspected.”
“Who?”
Before she answered, the house alarm sounded.
A security guard rushed inside.
“Mrs. Whitmore, we need to move you.”
Alexander stood.
“What happened?”
“Breach at the east gate.”
Eleanor grabbed Emily's wrist.
“Listen to me. Daniel hid one final record.”
“Where?”
“With the person he trusted most.”
“My mother?”
“No.”
Eleanor looked at Alexander.
“Your father.”
Alexander frowned.
“We found the ledger.”
“Not the ledger.”
She leaned closer.
“The recording.”
Glass shattered somewhere downstairs.
Security moved toward them.
Eleanor whispered:
May you like
“Richard recorded the night Daniel died.”
Then the sunroom door began to open.
