Chapter 19 - THE WOMAN ON THE SCREEN
The second ledger changed the investigation overnight.
Federal agents executed warrants at banks, law offices, and consulting firms connected to Lydia’s records.
Graham Sloane was arrested before he could leave the country.
Senator Reed publicly denied every accusation.
Lydia remained missing.
Then she appeared on every screen in the Vale Financial Protection Center.
It happened during an evening workshop.
The presentation disappeared.
Lydia’s face replaced it.
She was older than Elena remembered, but her expression was calm.
“You built a beautiful center,” Lydia said.
Clients turned toward Elena.
Security locked the doors while technicians tried to end the transmission.
Lydia continued.
“You teach people to recognize control. Yet you still believe institutions protect the innocent.”
Elena stepped toward the camera mounted above the screen.
“What do you want?”
A faint smile crossed Lydia’s face.
“Brianna Mercer will come to the Grand Meridian Hotel tomorrow at six.”
“No.”
“She will sign a statement confirming that she controlled Account Six.”
“She won’t.”
“Then the second ledger will be released without context. Every payment will appear beside the name of the person it benefited. Vale Medical is included.”
Robert looked sharply at the screen.
Lydia displayed a record showing a two-million-dollar payment connected to a medical-device approval obtained years earlier.
Margaret whispered, “That isn’t possible.”
Robert read the date.
His face changed.
The payment had been made during a year when Vale Medical was seeking approval for a lifesaving surgical device.
“I never authorized that,” he said.
Lydia heard him.
“Perhaps not. But your company benefited.”
Elena understood the trap.
Lydia did not need every accusation to be true.
She needed enough real evidence mixed with enough misleading evidence to make the public doubt everything.
“Why Brianna?” Elena asked.
“Because a Mercer created the account. A Mercer will close it.”
The transmission ended.
Naomi opposed sending Brianna to the hotel.
Brianna disagreed.
“She’ll keep threatening people until she believes she has won.”
“You would be walking into a controlled environment,” Naomi said.
“So control it better than she does.”
Elena studied the payment linked to Vale Medical.
The approval date was real.
But the company listed beside the payment was not the manufacturer.
It was a consulting firm.
Robert suddenly recognized the name.
The consultant had been recommended by Senator Reed.
“We paid the firm a legal fee,” he said. “If they bribed someone afterward, we never knew.”
Naomi could investigate it.
But Lydia would use the accusation immediately.
Elena looked at Brianna.
“We go to the hotel.”
Naomi began to object.
“Not to sign anything,” Elena continued. “To make Lydia show us what she needs.”
At five fifty the following evening, Brianna entered the Grand Meridian ballroom wearing the wedding dress she had never expected to see again.
May you like
Lydia wanted a second performance.
Brianna intended to give her one.
