Chapter 4 - THE DEAD WOMAN IN APARTMENT 5CThey did not let Clara go alone.
At 11:42 p.m., an unmarked police vehicle stopped half a block from the address.
Detective Morales sat in the front.
Dawson was beside her.
Arthur and Julian waited in a second vehicle despite Morales repeatedly insisting they remain at the hotel.
Arthur’s response had been simple.
“My dead wife just sent us her address.”
Nobody managed to persuade him after that.
Clara entered the building wearing a concealed microphone.
Police officers occupied both stairwells.
The elevator was disabled.
Every exit was covered.
Apartment 5C was at the end of a dim hallway.
Clara knocked.
No answer.
She knocked again.
“Eleanor?”
A lock clicked.
The door opened three inches.
A woman looked through the gap.
Clara recognized her immediately from the photograph.
“Are you Clara?”
“Yes.”
“Are you alone?”
Clara hesitated.
The woman smiled faintly.
“Good. That means you’re not.”
She opened the door.
“Tell Arthur he can stop hiding downstairs.”
Clara touched her microphone.
A minute later, Arthur stood in the doorway.
Eleven years of grief disappeared from his face and returned all at once.
Eleanor Vance looked at him.
Arthur looked at her.
Neither moved.
Julian came around the corner.
“Mom?”
Eleanor’s composure shattered.
“My God.”
Julian crossed the room in three steps.
She wrapped her arms around him.
Clara looked away.
Arthur did not.
He stood beside the doorway like a man watching a ghost take human form.
Finally Eleanor released her son.
Arthur spoke.
“You let us bury an empty coffin.”
Eleanor closed her eyes.
“I know.”
“You let our son believe you were dead.”
“I know.”
“For eleven years.”
“I know.”
Arthur stepped inside.
“You don’t get to say that as though it explains anything.”
“It doesn’t.”
“Then explain.”
Morales entered behind them.
“Mrs. Vance, we need to know whether you’re in danger.”
Eleanor gave a tired laugh.
“I’ve been in danger since 2015.”
Arthur stared.
“From whom?”
Eleanor looked at him.
“Your company.”
Arthur almost scoffed.
“My company?”
“Not all of it.”
She sat at the kitchen table.
The apartment was modest.
Nothing like the homes Eleanor had once shared with a billionaire.
“You remember Meridian BioSystems?”
Arthur nodded.
“Medical research division. Closed seven years ago.”
“You closed the public division.”
Arthur’s eyes narrowed.
“There was no private division.”
“Yes, there was.”
Eleanor opened a laptop.
“Malcolm Reed helped run it.”
On the screen appeared records.
Payments.
Research contracts.
Offshore corporations.
Patient identifiers.
Arthur leaned closer.
“What is this?”
“Your company secretly funded clinical trials involving cardiac drugs.”
“That is impossible.”
“I thought so too.”
Eleanor clicked another folder.
“Until I found participants who never consented.”
Morales stepped forward.
“Human experimentation?”
“Not exactly. The drugs were legal. But patient records were manipulated to hide adverse reactions.”
Arthur stared at the screen.
“Who authorized it?”
Eleanor looked at him.
“Victor Lang.”
Arthur froze.
Clara knew the name.
Almost everyone in finance did.
Victor Lang had been Arthur’s closest friend and Vance Meridian’s chief financial officer for twenty-two years.
He was also currently vice chairman of the board.
“He couldn’t,” Arthur said.
“He did.”
“You have proof?”
“I had proof.”
“Had?”
“Eleven years ago.”
She looked toward Julian.
“When I discovered the accounts, I went to Malcolm Reed because I trusted him. That was my mistake.”
“He told Lang,” Arthur said.
“Yes.”
“What happened?”
Eleanor’s hands trembled.
“Victor came to the house.”
Julian looked up.
“The night you disappeared?”
She nodded.
“He told me I had two options. Destroy what I’d found and stay quiet, or disappear.”
Arthur’s face darkened.
“And you chose to abandon your family?”
“No.”
Eleanor looked directly at him.
“I chose the third option.”
“What third option?”
“I tried to expose them.”
Silence.
“I contacted a federal investigator,” she continued. “Before I could meet him, his car went off a bridge.”
Morales frowned.
“What investigator?”
“Thomas Kessler.”
Morales reacted immediately.
“You’re sure?”
“You know the name?”
“Kessler was with the SEC. His death was ruled accidental.”
“It wasn’t.”
Arthur sat slowly.
Eleanor continued.
“Victor told me Julian would be next if I didn’t disappear.”
Julian stared at her.
“You left to protect me?”
“I thought I could gather evidence from outside.”
“For eleven years?”
Tears filled her eyes.
“The first year was supposed to be temporary. Then every person who helped me became threatened.”
Arthur looked sick.
“Why didn’t you contact me?”
“I did.”
“When?”
“Four times.”
“I never received anything.”
“I know.”
She turned the laptop.
A list appeared.
Dates.
Emails.
Courier receipts.
“Someone intercepted everything.”
Arthur looked at the dates.
His face went blank.
Every message had been routed through the same person.
His executive assistant at the time.
Victoria Shaw.
The woman who later became Victoria Vance.
Clara whispered, “She already worked for you?”
Arthur nodded slowly.
“She managed my private correspondence after Eleanor disappeared.”
Eleanor looked at him.
“She didn’t marry you by accident.”
Arthur pushed away from the table.
For the first time that night, he looked truly defeated.
His second wife had not simply betrayed him.
She had apparently entered his life as part of something that had begun before his first wife vanished.
Julian looked at Eleanor.
“Why now?”
“Because Victor is moving the last of the money.”
“What money?”
“Three billion dollars.”
Arthur stared.
“That’s impossible.”
“Check the foundation.”
His expression changed.
“The foundation?”
“Tomorrow morning, your board is supposed to approve the transfer of Meridian’s medical patents into a private holding company.”
Arthur nodded.
“For restructuring.”
“There is no restructuring.”
Eleanor’s voice hardened.
“It transfers ownership to a company Victor controls.”
Arthur looked toward Dawson.
“Call legal.”
Eleanor raised a hand.
“Wait.”
Everyone turned.
“There’s more.”
She looked at Clara.
“Tonight wasn’t the first attempt.”
Clara’s skin prickled.
“What do you mean?”
“Arthur’s medication has been manipulated for months.”
Arthur touched his chest instinctively.
“Reed.”
“Yes.”
“They were weakening your heart gradually,” Eleanor said. “Tonight was supposed to finish it.”
“Why the gala?”
“Because hundreds of witnesses would see you drinking.”
Arthur understood.
“A heart attack.”
“Exactly.”
“And Victoria inherits my voting shares.”
“For thirty days.”
Julian stared at his father.
“That’s enough to approve the patent transfer.”
Eleanor nodded.
Arthur looked out the window.
“Then Victoria poisoned me for money.”
Eleanor shook her head.
“No.”
Everyone looked at her.
“She poisoned you because Victor told her Julian would die if she didn’t.”
Julian went still.
Arthur turned.
“What?”
Eleanor opened another file.
A photograph appeared.
Victoria.
Sitting in a car.
Beside her was a young woman Clara didn’t recognize.
“They’ve been watching Victoria’s daughter.”
Arthur frowned.
“Victoria doesn’t have a daughter.”
Eleanor gave him a sad look.
“Yes, Arthur.”
“She does.”
The young woman in the photograph had blond hair and Arthur’s eyes.
Arthur stared.
“No.”
Eleanor closed the laptop.
“She was born twenty-nine years ago.”
Before Victoria ever met Arthur.
“And according to the birth certificate I found last month…”
Eleanor looked at Julian.
“…her father is Victor Lang.”
A floorboard creaked outside.
Dawson reached for his weapon.
May you like
The lights went out.
Then three suppressed gunshots shattered the apartment door.
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