Chapter 10: Gathering the Proof
The house was finally quiet when Martha’s car crunched down the gravel driveway and disappeared around the corner. I watched from the living room window until the dust settled on the suburban street, feeling a profound sense of weight lift from my shoulders, though the real battle was only just beginning.
I turned away from the glass and walked back into the study. Chloe was safely coloring in the adjoining sunroom, humming softly to herself, her pastel rainbow dress bright against the afternoon light. I needed to use this window of peace to organize our next move before Richard Vance made his inevitable counter-move.
I sat down at the glass desk and plugged the secure flash drive back into my laptop. The screen populated with files: the uncompressed video of Martha opening the wall safe, the text logs from ‘RV-Direct’, the timestamped system access records, and the digital copies of the stolen tech startup patents that Martha had tried to swap out.
I opened an encrypted browser window and routed the entire package through a secure virtual private network directly to Arthur Pendelton, my senior corporate attorney and one of the few people in the city who hadn't been bought or intimidated by Richard Vance. Arthur was old-school—a bulldog of a lawyer who lived for high-stakes corporate litigation and despised corporate bullies.
Within three minutes, my phone rang. I picked it up on the first ring.
“Evelyn,” Arthur’s gravelly, no-nonsense voice came through the speaker. “I just decrypted the drive. Good God, woman. Where did you get this?”
“From my hallway wall safe, Arthur,” I replied, keeping my voice steady. “Martha was working as a direct plant for Vance. She tried to clean out the patent ledgers this morning.”
There was a brief pause on the other end of the line, the sound of paper rustling as Arthur reviewed the files. When he spoke again, his tone had shifted from professional skepticism to fierce determination.
“This isn't just an internal breach, Evelyn. This is a federal criminal conspiracy. The wire transfer logs alone are enough to freeze Vance’s personal accounts and initiate an emergency injunction against the merger.”
“Can we do it today?” I asked, leaning forward, resting my elbows on the glass desk.
“We don't just do it today,” Arthur said grimly. “We do it publicly. Tomorrow morning at the annual charity gala at the Grand Meridian Hotel. Vance is scheduled to take the stage as keynote speaker to announce the acquisition. That’s when we serve him with the federal subpoena in front of every investor, reporter, and camera in the state.”
May you like
A slow, cold smile finally touched my lips. The contrast between public glamour and private crime was going to be exposed on the grandest stage possible.
“Let’s do it,” I said.
