Chapter 31 - the son who stood in the corridor
Owen listened to the recording three times.
“That is not me.”
“The voice is identical,” Grace said.
“Someone manufactured it.”
Nora watched her son rather than the screen.
“Where were you this morning?”
“At headquarters.”
“Who saw you?”
“Hundreds of people.”
Owen provided security footage showing him entering the finance department before Celeste recorded the message. His badge remained active in the building until noon.
Grace sent the audio to a forensic laboratory.
The initial analysis found unnatural breaks between several words. The voice had been created using recordings from Vale Meridian’s investor presentations.
Someone wanted Nora to distrust her son.
“I should have known,” she told him.
“You had every reason to question me.”
“No. I had reasons to ask. That is different from assuming guilt.”
Owen looked toward the floor.
“I assumed you were involved when Dad showed me the transfers.”
“And we both nearly gave the person behind this exactly what he wanted.”
They drove to Bell Street together.
The townhouse had remained empty for six weeks after the last tenant moved out. Dust covered the floor, and unopened mail waited beneath the front slot.
Nora walked through rooms that seemed smaller than she remembered. The kitchen table was where Malcolm had promised they would become equal partners. The staircase was where Nora had sat after learning she was pregnant with Maya.
She searched the fireplace, the floorboards and the old built-in cabinets.
Owen found a loose brick behind the pantry.
Inside the wall was a blue metal case.
The compass pendant opened it.
The case contained the original Northstar trust, Katherine’s patent agreement and a photograph of Gideon meeting Judge Holloway two days after Elias’s disappearance.
Beneath the documents lay a handwritten list of passwords.
Nora recognized the first phrase.
It was the final sentence her mother had spoken before dying.
Build something they cannot take from you.
The password unlocked Elias’s drive.
May you like
Thousands of records appeared on Owen’s computer.
At the top was a folder named MALCOLM VALE—FULL PARTICIPATION.
