Chapter 10 - WHAT OWEN KNEW
Natalie left the room and vomited.
Dominic waited outside the bathroom door.
He did not touch her when she came out.
"Do you want me here?"
That was new for him too.
Not assuming.
Asking.
Federal agents traced the old clinic photograph to a closed wing beneath Vaughn's practice.
There they found a storage room with restraints, old cameras, and copied financial records.
Owen had been there.
His fingerprints remained on a metal desk.
So did Catherine's.
Vaughn admitted Owen discovered suspicious trust transfers while helping Natalie organize tax records.
He confronted Preston.
Preston had him held for one night and threatened Natalie and Noah.
Owen pretended to back down.
Instead, he started building the envelope hidden in Catherine's cottage.
"Why didn't he tell me?" Natalie asked.
Vaughn looked at her through the video feed.
"Because Preston showed him photographs of Noah's school."
Owen had spent his final months acting distant.
She thought grief over Catherine and work stress were pulling him away.
In reality he was trying to keep the threat away from her.
Dominic hated the idea.
Not because Owen had been weak.
Because fear had forced him into isolation.
Then investigators recovered Vaughn's deleted messages.
Owen to Preston:
I copied everything. If anything happens to me, Natalie gets it.
Preston:
Then nothing can happen to you until we find the copy.
Six weeks later Owen died.
A message from Malcolm Harrington to Brooke appeared that same night.
M.H.: The husband is handled.
B.H.: Does Natalie know?
M.H.: She knows only what grief tells her.
Brooke had known about Owen's death the night it happened.
Brooke was gone.
Her room window stood open.
One security guard lay unconscious near the garden wall.
On the bed was a wedding veil.
Pinned to it was a note.
May you like
SATURDAY STILL HAPPENS.
OR NOAH LEARNS WHAT HAPPENED TO HIS FATHER.
