Chapter 6
Ethan stared at the security image as if it had broken something inside him.
“That isn’t possible.”
“It’s Rebecca,” Victoria said.
“She was at school.”
“Her college confirmed she missed three days of classes.”
Ethan called his daughter.
The phone went directly to voicemail.
He called her roommate.
Rebecca had packed a bag on Monday and said she was visiting family.
Ethan’s hands began to shake.
“Margaret has her.”
“Or Rebecca is helping her.”
“No. My daughter would never take a child.”
Victoria remembered Ethan saying the same thing about himself before admitting he had attended the dinner and watched Sophia suffer.
Fear made people betray their values slowly.
One compromise at a time.
“What did Margaret have on Rebecca besides the rehabilitation records?” Victoria asked.
“Nothing.”
“You’re still protecting her.”
“I’m not.”
“Then explain why your daughter impersonated Margaret and removed a hidden child from school.”
Ethan sat heavily.
“Rebecca owes money.”
“How much?”
“Almost four hundred thousand dollars.”
Rachel frowned.
“For what?”
“Online gambling.”
Ethan said he had covered the first debt.
Then the second.
Margaret discovered the payments and offered Rebecca a way out.
Rebecca agreed to deliver documents and make calls.
Ethan claimed he did not know she had been involved with Colin.
Victoria called Rebecca again from Ethan’s phone.
This time, someone answered.
No one spoke.
Victoria heard the low sound of a car engine.
Then a boy whispered, “Please don’t hang up.”
“Colin?” Victoria asked.
The line disconnected.
Detective Ortiz traced the signal to a highway heading south.
State police began searching.
Victoria could not join them.
An emergency message from Bennett Global summoned her back to headquarters.
The forensic audit had uncovered something alarming.
Westbridge had purchased eleven percent of Bennett Global’s shares through hidden affiliates.
Grant had arranged options for another twelve percent.
If those options were exercised, Westbridge could attempt a hostile takeover.
The deadline was noon the next day.
Evelyn Shaw met Victoria in the boardroom.
“We need your voting shares released.”
“They’re frozen inside Sophia’s trust.”
“Then we may lose the company.”
Victoria looked at the city below.
Grant had designed the trap carefully.
If she unfroze the trust, Margaret’s forged amendment might allow the money to move.
If she kept it frozen, Westbridge could gain control.
Rachel examined the trust terms.
“There is one emergency clause.”
“What is it?”
“Sophia can authorize the voting shares to return to Victoria.”
“She’s six.”
“The clause was meant for her adulthood. But it does not specify an age.”
“I’m not dragging her into a board fight.”
Evelyn spoke sharply.
“She is already in it.”
“No. Other people put her in it. I will not ask her to save a company she does not understand.”
“Then thousands of people may lose their jobs.”
Victoria knew that.
It was the cruelest part of Grant’s plan.
He had made Sophia’s safety appear opposed to the survival of the company that secured her future.
Victoria returned to the apartment.
Sophia was drawing at the table.
She had sketched three people holding hands.
Victoria recognized herself, Sophia, and Maria.
Daniel was absent.
“Can I ask you something about the company?” Victoria said.
Sophia looked worried.
“Did I break it?”
“No.”
“Grandma said it was mine and I was bad at having it.”
Victoria sat beside her.
“Part of the company is protected for you. Some dishonest people are trying to take it.”
“Because I found the paper?”
“They started before that.”
Sophia studied the drawing.
“Can you stop them?”
“Yes. But I may need your permission to use the part protected for you.”
“Will you give it back?”
“Always.”
“Then okay.”
Victoria did not accept the answer yet.
A child advocate joined them by video and explained the choice in simple language.
Sophia could say no.
No one would be angry.
Sophia asked only one question.
“If Mommy gets it, can Grandma take my food again?”
“No,” Victoria said.
“Then Mommy gets it.”
The authorization was witnessed by the advocate, Rachel, and a judge.
At nine the next morning, Victoria returned to the boardroom with control of her voting shares.
Westbridge’s representatives were already there.
Their CEO, Malcolm Reed, sat in Victoria’s chair.
“Move,” she said.
He smiled.
“You’ve been suspended.”
“My suspension expired at eight.”
Evelyn confirmed it.
Malcolm remained seated.
Victoria placed the external audit on the table.
“Westbridge concealed three billion dollars in liabilities and paid Grant Mercer to force an acquisition.”
Malcolm laughed.
“That is defamatory.”
“It is also being delivered to federal investigators.”
The board voted to cancel the options.
Victoria used her shares to remove Grant permanently.
Malcolm left under escort.
The company was safe for the moment.
But before Victoria could feel relief, Detective Ortiz called.
Police had located Rebecca’s car at a rural gas station.
Rebecca was unconscious in the back seat.
Colin was gone.
At the hospital, Rebecca woke long enough to say someone had followed her from Vermont.
She had taken Colin because Margaret promised to erase her debts.
Halfway south, Rebecca panicked and decided to bring him to Ethan.
A black truck forced her off the road.
A masked man took Colin.
“He knew my name,” Rebecca whispered.
“Did you recognize his voice?” Ortiz asked.
Rebecca began to cry.
“Yes.”
“Who was he?”
“Owen.”
Owen Rusk was in county custody.
Or he was supposed to be.
A call revealed he had been released six hours earlier because evidence related to his arrest had been improperly logged.
Someone inside law enforcement had helped him.
Detective Ortiz immediately checked the officers connected to the case.
One name appeared repeatedly.
Captain Marcus Bell.
Henry Bell’s brother.
Henry was one of the attorneys at Margaret’s dinner.
The conspiracy reached into the police department.
Ortiz took Victoria to a secure federal office.
“We cannot trust local channels.”
“Can we trust anyone?”
“A small team.”
Ethan remained at Rebecca’s bedside.
Daniel was brought in for questioning.
When shown Colin’s school photograph, he broke down.
“That’s him.”
“You’re certain?” Ortiz asked.
“He has his mother’s eyes.”
“Who was his mother?”
Daniel looked at Victoria.
“Her name was Julia Mercer.”
Victoria’s mind raced.
“Grant’s sister?”
“Yes.”
Julia had died in an apparent overdose shortly after the baby’s birth.
Daniel believed she had never recovered from being told Colin was dead.
Grant blamed Daniel.
That gave him another motive.
He did not simply want Victoria’s company.
He wanted to punish Daniel and take control of his nephew’s inheritance.
“Where would Owen take Colin?” Victoria asked.
Daniel thought for a moment.
“Grant owns property through dozens of companies.”
“We froze them.”
“Not Caroline’s.”
Daniel explained that Caroline had maintained an old research facility outside Baltimore.
The building had been sold after her reported death, but the buyer was anonymous.
Federal records identified the current owner as Cole Innovations.
Police surrounded the facility before midnight.
Victoria stayed in the command vehicle.
She watched tactical officers enter through thermal cameras.
They found Colin locked inside an office.
Owen was not there.
The boy was thin and terrified.
He refused to speak until Daniel’s name was mentioned.
Then he asked, “Is he the man Grandma said killed my mother?”
Daniel heard the question through the command radio.
His face collapsed.
He wanted to go to Colin.
The child psychologist refused.
Colin had spent his life being told Daniel was dangerous.
A sudden reunion could cause more harm.
Victoria watched the boy wrap himself in a blanket.
He looked so small.
So much like Sophia after the dinner.
Margaret had controlled both children through hunger, isolation, and fear.
“She didn’t want heirs,” Victoria said. “She wanted prisoners.”
Daniel nodded.
Federal agents searched the facility.
They discovered original research files proving Caroline had created the battery-control technology.
They also found a video diary.
In the final recording, Caroline sat in a hospital room.
She looked weak but clear-minded.
“If anything happens to me,” she said, “my mother and Grant Mercer are responsible.”
She described the staged boating accident.
She said Margaret had hidden her after she survived because Caroline planned to expose the patent theft.
Then Caroline revealed something no one expected.
“Victoria Vale did not steal my work. She paid for it. Grant intercepted the money.”
Caroline held up a contract.
“I want my ownership interest transferred to my nephew Colin and to any future daughter born to Victoria. She is the only person I trust to protect them.”
Victoria stared at the screen.
Caroline had named Sophia before Sophia existed.
The recording continued.
“Daniel knows where the original contract is hidden.”
Everyone turned toward him.
Daniel looked horrified.
“I’ve never seen it.”
Caroline’s image leaned closer to the camera.
“It is inside our mother’s copy of The Secret Garden. The book she never opens because she hated reading it to us.”
Margaret’s personal belongings had been cataloged after her arrest.
The book was not among them.
May you like
But Victoria knew where she had seen it.
It sat on a shelf in Sophia’s bedroom.
