Chapter 14 - THE SAFE-DEPOSIT BOX
I told Paige the truth in the car.
Not every detail. Not yet.
I told her Rebecca discovered financial crimes. I told her Noah and Marlene followed Rebecca on the night she died. I told her I did not know whether they caused the crash, but I knew they had hidden evidence afterward.
Paige stared through the windshield.
“Dad cried at her funeral.”
“So did I.”
“But his tears were fake?”
“Some people cry because they are grieving. Others cry because they are afraid.”
Paige wiped her face.
“Which was he?”
“I don’t know anymore.”
George’s cassette contained one final clue. Rebecca mentioned a safe-deposit box rented under our childhood nickname for her: Birdie Hale.
The bank was closing when we arrived.
The manager initially refused access, but Rebecca had listed me as the beneficiary if she failed to renew the box for five consecutive years.
Inside were employee share certificates, original pension statements and a sealed envelope with my name.
The letter was brief.
Viv, if you are reading this, I failed to get home. Noah knows I discovered the transfers. Marlene believes the hotel matters more than any person. Do not let them teach your child the same thing.
Beneath the letter was a notarized declaration transferring Rebecca’s seven-percent inherited interest in Ashford Heritage to me.
My father had quietly given Rebecca shares years earlier.
Noah never knew.
Combined with my existing shares and the employee trust voting rights attached to the stolen pension funds, I could control the company—if the transfers were officially declared fraudulent.
Paige held the certificate carefully.
“You can fire him?”
“Only if we prove what he did.”
The bank manager returned carrying a second envelope.
“This was deposited into the box last month.”
“By whom?”
“The individual used a key and provided the correct access phrase.”
Rebecca had been dead for nine years.
I opened the envelope.
Inside was a recent photograph of Noah meeting a man outside a private airfield.
On the back were six words:
The money leaves tomorrow after dinner.
Paige studied the man in the photograph.
May you like
“I know him,” she whispered.
“He comes to our house when you’re away.”
