Chapter 6 - The Visitor After Midnight
At 1:17 in the morning, a man wearing hospital maintenance clothing entered the third-floor corridor.
Security cameras captured him carrying a toolbox.
His badge was counterfeit.
Inside Lena’s room, the lights were dim. She appeared to be asleep while Camille rested in a chair beside the window.
The man quietly approached the locked cabinet where the supposed trust documents had been placed.
He opened his toolbox.
Detective Ruiz stepped from behind the bathroom door.
“Victor Hale.”
Victor froze.
Two officers entered from the corridor.
Victor dropped the tool in his hand.
“I’m only here to repair the cabinet.”
“At one in the morning?” Ruiz asked.
Victor tried to run, but the officers stopped him before he reached the door.
Inside the toolbox, investigators found lock-picking tools, a container of cleaning solvent, and a flash drive loaded with software designed to erase digital files.
They also found a folded note.
Remove hospital copy. Delete Vale estate server. Await transfer.
The handwriting belonged to Adrian.
Victor was arrested for obstruction, unlawful entry, conspiracy, and evidence tampering.
At first, he refused to speak.
Then Ruiz placed photographs of the damaged car on the interview table.
“Adrian says you acted alone,” Ruiz told him.
It was not true, but Victor believed it.
Ruiz continued.
“He says you cut the brakes because you were afraid Lena would expose Northstar.”
Victor’s face tightened.
“That liar.”
“Help yourself.”
Victor looked through the glass wall of the interrogation room, as if Adrian might somehow be watching.
“I didn’t touch the brakes,” he said. “Adrian did.”
Ruiz said nothing.
Victor began talking.
Adrian had discovered Lena examining the trust transfers. He feared she would hire an independent auditor and uncover years of fraud.
He decided her death would solve both problems.
The plan was simple. Adrian would damage the brake line, encourage Lena to drive through Blackwood Pass, and later claim the crash was an accident caused by rain.
Victor’s task was to delete the estate security footage.
“But I kept a copy,” Victor said. “Insurance.”
“Where?”
“In a private cloud account.”
The recovered video showed Adrian entering the garage shortly after midnight.
He crouched beside Lena’s car for eleven minutes.
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When he stood, he was holding the same cutting tool investigators later discovered.
The footage was clear enough to end every argument Adrian had prepared.
