Chapter 4 - The Price of Pearls
Ethan showed the messages to hospital security and the police. The number belonged to a prepaid phone, but the photograph gave them something more useful. It had been taken from the west stairwell of the parking structure. Security footage showed Brooke entering at 4:18 p.m., leaving fourteen minutes later, and throwing a small black object into a trash bin across the street.
The phone was recovered before the bins were emptied.
Brooke denied sending the messages. Lorraine called the entire matter a misunderstanding caused by grief and travel fatigue. Their attorney arrived at the mansion before the police returned with a limited warrant for the pantry and Natalie's belongings.
At nine that night, Detective Lena Ortiz met Ethan in the hospital cafeteria. She placed sealed evidence bags on the table. One held a weekly pill organizer. Another held three prescription bottles with labels partially removed.
"The names and tablets do not match," Ortiz said. "We are sending everything to the lab."
"Was it poison?"
"Do not get ahead of the evidence. Some of these appear to be common sedatives and blood pressure medication. For someone underweight, an incorrect combination could be dangerous. We need medical confirmation and fingerprints."
"The cash box?"
"Gone. So are several files from the blue room. Your mother says a courier collected charitable records before we arrived."
"There was no courier."
"I agree. The exterior cameras went offline for twenty-three minutes."
Ortiz asked for Ethan's bank statements, transfer confirmations, and correspondence from the past fourteen months. He gave her access to everything. When he logged into the Cole Meridian operating account, he discovered his credentials no longer worked.
He called his chief financial officer, Grant Mercer, who answered from a golf resort in Sedona.
"We had a security alert this afternoon," Grant said. "Your access was suspended after three failed attempts."
"Who requested the suspension?"
"You did. Through your executive authorization email."
"I did not. Freeze every outgoing payment."
Grant hesitated. "Ethan, your mother is listed as emergency director while you are traveling. She approved two transfers this morning."
"How much?"
"One was ninety-five thousand. The other was four hundred and eighty thousand."
The cafeteria noises receded.
"Where did they go?"
"The smaller transfer went to Larkspur Foundation. The larger one went to Ashford Holdings. Both are vendors already approved in the system."
"Approved by whom?"
Grant's silence answered before his words did. "By your electronic signature."
Ethan asked Ortiz to listen as Grant described the approvals. The detective took notes and told Grant to preserve the records. She then called a financial crimes investigator.
By midnight, the two hundred thousand dollars Ethan had sent for Natalie no longer looked like the entire crime. It looked like practice.
Natalie's biopsy was scheduled for seven the next morning. Ethan returned to her room and found her awake, watching a home renovation program with the sound off.
"You should sleep," he said.
"So should you."
He sat near the door. "The police found the medicine box. They're testing it."
"Did they find my green notebook?"
"What notebook?"
"I wrote down every pill and every job your mother made me do. Dates, times, visitors, things Brooke said. I hid it behind a loose tile in the laundry room."
Ethan called Ortiz. The detective dispatched an officer, but an hour later she reported that the laundry room had been flooded by an overflowing utility sink. The wall was already being stripped by a restoration crew Lorraine had hired that evening.
"She knows," Natalie said.
"About the notebook?"
"She always knew when I hid something."
Natalie explained that Lorraine searched her room while she worked outside. Once, Natalie had found a single blond hair placed across her drawer, a simple trap to reveal whether she opened it. Another time, Brooke photographed the soles of her shoes to prove she had walked beyond the property.
"They were not just taking money," Natalie said. "They were afraid I would discover something."
"What?"
"I don't know. But your mother kept asking whether you had told me about Ashford."
Ethan leaned forward. "Ashford?"
"She said the name the day she made me sign the papers. When I asked what it was, Brooke told her to shut up."
Ethan remembered Ashford Holdings on the transfer Grant had described. He also remembered the name from childhood, written on blueprints in his father's study. Ashford had been Charles Cole's first company, dissolved after the plane crash.
"My father used that name," he said.
Natalie studied his face. "Your mother told me your father died because he trusted the wrong woman."
Ethan's mouth went dry. "What woman?"
"She would not say."
At 2:13 a.m., Grant Mercer called again. His voice was no longer relaxed.
"I traced the authorization certificate on the Ashford transfer," he said. "It wasn't issued to Lorraine or Brooke."
"Who was it issued to?"
"That is the problem. The credential was created twelve years ago. According to the system, it belongs to Charles Cole."
Ethan looked at the dark window and saw his own reflection over Natalie's bed.
May you like
"My father has been dead for twelve years."
"Then someone has spent twelve years making sure his signature could still move your money."
