Chapter 25 - The Building Across the Street
Daniel traced the unidentified Founder Two account.
For more than twenty years, it had paid rent on a small office across from Meridian’s headquarters.
The tenant used the name Ward Research.
The office windows faced Victoria’s executive floor.
Inside, investigators found photographs of Meridian employees, board meetings and company events.
Some were recent.
Others had been taken before the headquarters was built.
One wall was covered with diagrams showing Meridian’s ownership history.
At the center was Victoria’s name.
A line connected her to Helena Ward.
Beneath the line, someone had written:
She received everything because she knew nothing.
Arthur found a photograph on the desk.
It showed Victoria as a young founder standing beside Margaret and Helena.
The photograph had been cut so that only Victoria and Margaret appeared in the version displayed at Meridian.
Victoria remembered that day.
She remembered Helena leaving the celebration early after an argument.
Margaret had told her Helena was jealous because investors preferred Victoria’s leadership.
In a locked drawer, police found letters addressed to Victoria.
None had been mailed.
The first letter accused Margaret of changing the company’s ownership agreement.
The second warned that Meridian’s encryption system contained a hidden access channel.
The third contained only one sentence.
Your mother knows what happened.
Victoria’s mother, Eleanor Thompson, had died nine years earlier.
Or that was what Victoria had believed.
May you like
The death certificate was genuine.
The hospital records were not.
