Chapter 3 - ONE HUNDRED AND TWELVE DAYS
I opened my private surveillance archive from a laptop Detective McKenna had cleared for evidence review.
The system contained one hundred and twelve days of footage.
The oldest file began at 2:13 in the morning.
Allison entered my mother’s bedroom carrying a glass of water and a small bottle behind her back.
Mom was awake.
“Please,” she said. “Don’t do this again.”
Allison placed two pills into the glass and stirred them with a spoon.
“You need your medicine.”
“Those aren’t mine.”
“They are now.”
When Mom refused, Allison pinched her nose until she opened her mouth.
Detective McKenna stopped the video.
“Do you recognize the medication?”
I compared the bottle on-screen with those from the sewing box.
It was a sedative prescribed to Allison after minor surgery two years earlier.
“She was drugging her.”
“It may explain the confusion during your calls.”
I remembered evenings when Mom stared at the screen without speaking. Allison would sit beside her and answer every question.
“She’s tired, Ryder.”
“She had a difficult day.”
“She doesn’t remember you called yesterday.”
I had accepted each explanation because Allison delivered it calmly.
The next recording showed Mom sitting in the kitchen while Allison placed a document in front of her.
“Sign.”
“I need Ryder to read it.”
“Ryder is busy.”
“He always reads my papers.”
Allison leaned closer.
“Your son moved across the world and left you with me. Stop pretending he is coming to save you.”
Mom’s hand shook.
“He calls every night.”
“Because I remind him.”
Another file showed Jade slipping food into Mom’s bedroom after Allison locked the door.
Another showed Allison turning off the heat in the room and opening a window during a freezing night.
Another showed Mom falling near the patio while Allison watched from behind the glass.
Jade ran outside.
Allison waited six minutes before unlocking the door.
“Why didn’t she call an ambulance?” Detective McKenna asked.
I already knew.
An ambulance would have documented the fracture.
At 3:42 one morning, Grant Halstead entered through the side door.
My mother had been right.
He wore a dark coat and carried a leather document case.
Allison kissed him.
Not briefly.
Not accidentally.
I felt the betrayal, but it barely registered beside what came next.
Grant placed a stock-transfer agreement on the dining-room table.
“Eleanor owns thirty-eight percent,” he said. “Once we have her signature, the board cannot block the sale.”
“She keeps asking for Ryder.”
“Then keep her sedated.”
“What if he comes home?”
Grant laughed.
“The Saudi project is six weeks behind because I made sure it would be.”
I stared at the screen.
A sequence of supposed equipment failures had kept me overseas longer than planned. Grant had personally urged me to remain until every problem was corrected.
He had created those problems.
“After the acquisition,” Allison said, “what happens to Ryder?”
“The internal investigation will make him unemployable.”
“And the divorce?”
“You’ll have evidence that he abandoned an elderly parent and mismanaged company resources.”
Allison smiled.
“He’ll lose everything.”
Grant touched her face.
“Not everything. He’ll still have his mother.”
They laughed.
Detective McKenna paused the footage.
“This is larger than domestic abuse.”
I opened the company folder from the sewing box.
Grant planned to sell Whitmore Sentinel Systems to Bellweather Global, a private investment group.
Eleanor’s shares had belonged to my late father. He left them to her so no executive could sell the family company without her approval.
Grant already controlled fourteen percent.
With Mom’s shares, he would hold a majority.
Allison would receive twelve million dollars through a consulting agreement.
My wife had not lost control while caring for my mother.
She had been torturing her for a signature.
Detective McKenna’s phone rang.
After listening, she looked at me.
“Your wife has filed a domestic-violence complaint.”
“Against me?”
“She claims you threatened to kill her when you came home.”
I almost laughed.
“There were witnesses.”
“She says Jade and Eleanor are financially dependent on you and will repeat whatever you tell them.”
“The cameras prove she’s lying.”
“They do.”
McKenna closed the laptop.
“But she does not know how much you have.”
May you like
I looked at Grant’s face frozen on the screen.
“Then let’s keep it that way.”
