Chapter 18 - THE LAST FLIGHT
Graham was halfway to the airport when a state police cruiser stopped his sedan. He carried a passport, two phones, and a laptop with an encrypted drive attached. He asked for his attorney before the officers finished reading the warrant.
Vanessa was arrested outside her apartment. She wore sunglasses in the dark and told the cameras, "Adrian Blackwood has always been obsessed with controlling me."
Adrian watched the clip without answering it. Nora had advised silence, but it wasn't only strategy. He was finally tired of explaining himself to a woman who had tried to push him down a flight of stairs.
At the police station, Ortiz told him they had recovered financial records from Graham's drive. They connected Bellweather's hidden ownership to Graham, Vanessa's brother, and two consulting firms that had been paid for nonexistent work.
"The original sale numbers were altered," Ortiz said. "And the fees were going straight to their accounts."
"So the money was the point," Adrian said.
"Money and control. The evidence suggests they treated your injury as an opportunity, then an obstacle when you recovered."
"What happens now?"
"They face charges. Owen and Caleb face consequences too. It's going to take time. Don't expect a trial to fix everything it touches."
Nora later warned him that company investors were angry. Some would want him to fire half the staff, sell the waterfront properties anyway, and make the embarrassment disappear. Adrian knew how easy it would be to solve one injustice with another.
That evening he went to Crescent Harbor with no cameras and no speech. He helped Ruth carry groceries to her third-floor apartment. The stairs left his leg aching. He didn't hide it, and she didn't pity him.
"You're allowed to sit," she told him.
"I know. I'm learning."
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When he got home, a letter waited beneath his door. It was from the company's independent auditor.
The fraudulent sale had been stopped, but Blackwood Development itself might not survive what Graham had done.
