Chapter 6 - Vincent’s Story
Vincent did not run.
He sat at the library table while Alexander placed the photo between them.
“Explain.”
Vincent looked at it for a long time.
“I followed Claire that day.”
“Why?”
“She asked me to.”
Alexander’s eyes narrowed.
Vincent pulled an old phone from his pocket and opened a locked file.
Claire’s voice filled the room.
“If Alexander asks, tell him I was paranoid. But if I’m right, do not trust Nolan Pierce.”
Alexander stood so fast his chair fell.
“You had this for eleven months?”
“She made me promise not to give it to you unless I could prove the rest.”
“You decided that?”
“I decided not to hand you a theory while you were burying your wife.”
Alexander crossed the room and punched the wall.
I flinched.
Vincent continued. “I followed her home. I lost the black sedan near Preston Road. By the time I reached the estate, Claire was already on the stairs.”
“Alive?”
“For maybe thirty seconds.”
“What did she say?”
Vincent’s voice changed.
“She said, ‘It wasn’t the stairs.’”
Alexander turned.
“What does that mean?”
“I don’t know.”
Jenna, pale on the couch, whispered, “Maybe she was already hurt.”
The medical examiner had listed blunt-force injuries consistent with a fall.
But no toxicology screen for sedatives.
No detailed trace report from her clothing.
And the detective assigned to the case had retired six weeks later.
Alexander called an investigator he trusted.
Twenty minutes later, the answer came back.
The detective had not retired.
He had taken a consulting job in the Cayman Islands.
For a company owned by the same anonymous LLC behind the fake foundation.
Then Jenna pointed at another file.
“Open that.”
It was a payment ledger.
One name appeared every month.
V. COLE.
Vincent stared at it.
“That isn’t me.”
May you like
Alexander looked from the ledger to his security chief.
“Then who is V. Cole?”
