Chapter 2 - The Secret Elena Discovered
Elena regained full consciousness the next afternoon.
Her first question was about Samuel.
I showed her a photograph from the neonatal unit and promised that he was receiving excellent care. She cried quietly, then asked me to lock the door.
“Marcus tried to kill me,” she said.
I did not interrupt.
Three weeks earlier, Elena had received a notice from the bank regarding a loan application in my name. The application used my company shares as collateral and contained what appeared to be my signature.
Elena knew I had refused to pledge those shares.
She contacted the bank and learned that Marcus had submitted several documents claiming he held power of attorney over my financial affairs.
The power of attorney was fake.
Elena began investigating with the help of her friend Natalie, a forensic accountant. Together they discovered that Marcus had transferred millions from the family company into shell businesses. Some of the money had paid for personal properties and gambling debts.
My mother had approved several transactions.
“Elena planned to send everything to you,” Detective Coleman said after joining us in the hospital room.
“I tried,” Elena replied. “But someone accessed my email and deleted the files.”
She had copied the evidence onto a small encrypted drive and hidden it inside Samuel’s knitted yellow blanket.
Marcus must have learned about the investigation.
The morning before my return, he arrived at the house with Mother and a man Elena had never met. They claimed the man was a doctor hired to check her blood pressure.
Elena refused to let him touch her.
Marcus grabbed her phone.
When she tried to escape, she was struck and injected with something that made her lose control of her body. She remembered hearing Marcus argue with Mother as she drifted in and out of consciousness.
“We can’t leave her here,” Marcus had said.
Mother answered, “Daniel is returning tomorrow. Once he sees her, everything is finished.”
Marcus suggested making it look like an accidental overdose.
Mother rejected the idea because an investigation might reveal the forged documents.
Then Marcus mentioned the coffin.
They planned to claim Elena had died during an emergency home birth. A corrupt physician would produce false paperwork, and a funeral home employee would collect the coffin before my arrival.
But my early flight ruined their schedule.
“The blanket,” Elena whispered. “They were searching for it.”
I remembered seeing the yellow blanket in her final video call.
“Where is it?”
“In the nursery. Inside the lining, near the corner.”
Detective Coleman immediately sent officers to the house.
They returned an hour later with the blanket sealed in an evidence bag.
The drive was still inside.
Marcus had searched drawers, closets, computers, and storage boxes. He had never considered that the proof of his crimes had been sewn into something made for a baby.
The files revealed forged contracts, false loan applications, hidden accounts, and payments to a private physician named Dr. Everett Lang.
One payment had been made the day before Elena was placed in the coffin.
Another had been promised after the burial.
When Detective Coleman presented the evidence to the district attorney, arrest warrants were issued.
Marcus had already been detained for interfering with emergency responders. Dr. Lang was arrested at a private airport while attempting to leave the country.
My mother remained at the house under police supervision.
She requested to speak with me.
I refused.
Three days later, she sent a message through her attorney.
She claimed Marcus had manipulated her. She said she believed Elena was already dead when the coffin arrived.
But Elena had heard her discussing the plan.
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And I had watched her stand beside the coffin while my wife breathed beneath the funeral cloth.
Some betrayals could not be explained away.
