Chapter 6 - The Dead Man on My Screen
Priya isolated the network before the remote session could delete anything.
Then she copied the video to an offline machine.
The screen flickered.
Caleb Bennett appeared.
He looked directly into the camera.
"If you're watching this, somebody has finally asked the right question."
"My name is Caleb Bennett. I invested in Cross Technologies because Adrienne Cross built something honest. Sterling Meridian tried to buy my stake. I refused. Three weeks later, someone filed a transfer carrying my signature. I did not sign it."
"I have proof the transfer was forged. I also have proof Leonard Sterling knew it."
Vanessa's father.
"If anything happens to me, do not let them tell Grace I was careless."
Grace had told me Caleb died after his car went through a guardrail during heavy rain.
Caleb continued.
"There is a second ledger. Not digital. Not at my house. Eleanor Cross knows where it is. She promised me she'd protect Grace and Marcus if I couldn't."
The recording ended.
Priya finally whispered, "Holy hell."
By midnight, we had a forensic team preserving every Cross Technologies archive related to Sterling Meridian.
At 12:17 a.m., Vanessa called.
"Where are you?" she demanded.
"Working."
"Adrienne, listen to me. My father did ugly things in business. I won't defend everything he did twenty years ago. But you cannot connect me to it."
"I didn't say I could."
Silence.
"Vanessa, how did you know the documents involved your father?"
"Your mother told me."
"No. She said Sterling Meridian. Not Leonard."
Then Vanessa's voice softened.
"Come home. We can talk."
"We're done talking without lawyers."
"Don't do this."
"You threw boiling soup at my mother."
"You still don't understand what she was about to do."
"Then explain it."
Vanessa breathed out.
"She wasn't giving Grace twelve percent."
My hand tightened around the phone.
"What are you talking about?"
"Read page nine of the draft. Eleanor was giving Grace voting control over your family trust if you became incapacitated."
May you like
I opened the scanned transfer on my laptop.
Page nine was missing.
