Chapter 10 - Victoria’s Final BargainVictoria looked different without an audience.
Ethan remembered the date because they were supposed to have dinner.
He had canceled.
A merger meeting ran late.
Charles had texted him at 6:42 p.m.
Need to talk. Important. Come home.
Ethan replied:
Tomorrow morning. Promise.
There was no tomorrow morning.
At 11:17 p.m., Judith found Charles at the bottom of the west staircase.
For eighteen months, Ethan had carried one thought.
If he had gone home, maybe his father would still be alive.
Now he sat inside Detective Chen’s office listening to evidence that made the guilt heavier.
Security footage from the night Charles died had been deleted.
But Blackwood’s old home system automatically backed up fragments to a local server no one knew still existed.
A technician recovered twelve seconds.
The footage showed Charles climbing the staircase at 10:51 p.m.
Someone followed him.
A woman.
The camera angle showed only her back.
Dark dress.
Long hair.
Victoria seemed obvious.
But Chen paused the video.
“Look at the shoes.”
Ethan leaned closer.
Flat black shoes.
Victoria almost never wore flats.
“Judith?”
“No.”
“Who?”
Chen opened another image.
Alice Fenwick.
Victoria’s assistant.
Same build.
Same dark dress from a charity event earlier that evening.
Same shoes.
Ethan stared.
“Alice was there.”
“Yes.”
“Did she push him?”
“We asked.”
“What did she say?”
“She wants to tell you herself.”
Ethan did not like it.
But he agreed.
Alice entered wearing jail clothes.
She had not been charged with murder.
Yet.
She sat across from Ethan.
Her eyes were swollen.
“I’m sorry about Sofia.”
Ethan’s voice was cold.
“You can apologize to her mother.”
“I will.”
“Tell me about my father.”
Alice looked down.
“I followed him upstairs.”
“Why?”
“Victoria told me Charles had stolen documents.”
“Documents proving she was stealing.”
“I didn’t know.”
“You keep saying that.”
“I know.”
Ethan’s jaw tightened.
Alice continued.
“She told me to get a folder from him.”
“What happened?”
“He caught me.”
“Where?”
“Outside his study.”
Alice’s hands shook.
“He asked why I was following him. I lied. He didn’t believe me.”
“And?”
“He said he was calling you.”
Ethan stopped breathing.
“He had his phone.”
The message.
Need to talk. Important. Come home.
Alice continued.
“He told me Victoria was dangerous.”
“Did you tell her?”
“Yes.”
“Then what?”
Alice began crying.
“Victoria came upstairs.”
“What did she do?”
“She told Charles he was confused.”
“He wasn’t.”
“No.”
“What happened?”
“They argued.”
“About what?”
“The money.”
Ethan leaned forward.
“Then?”
“Charles said he had proof.”
“And Victoria?”
“She wanted the folder.”
“Did he give it to her?”
“No.”
Alice wiped her face.
“He started downstairs.”
“Why?”
“He said he was going to call the police from the kitchen because his cell phone battery was dying.”
Ethan knew the house layout.
The west staircase curved sharply around a landing.
“What happened?”
“Victoria grabbed him.”
Ethan’s hands tightened.
“She grabbed his arm.”
“Then?”
“He pulled away.”
Alice closed her eyes.
“He was weak from whatever she’d been giving him.”
“Did she push him?”
Alice cried harder.
“She shoved him.”
Silence.
“Once.”
Ethan could not move.
“He lost his balance.”
Alice’s voice became smaller.
“He reached for the railing.”
Ethan pictured his father.
“He missed.”
The room disappeared.
All Ethan could see was Charles falling.
Alice continued through tears.
“He fell down the entire staircase.”
“What did Victoria do?”
“She went downstairs.”
“To help him?”
Alice shook her head.
“She checked whether he was breathing.”
Ethan closed his eyes.
“And?”
“He was.”
That hurt worse.
“He was alive?”
“Yes.”
“What did she do?”
Alice could barely speak.
“She told me not to call anyone.”
Ethan stood so violently the chair moved backward.
Chen watched him carefully.
Alice sobbed.
“I wanted to.”
“But you didn’t.”
“No.”
“How long?”
“Twelve minutes.”
Ethan stared at her.
“You left my father on that floor for twelve minutes?”
“Yes.”
“What happened then?”
“Victoria called Judith from a house phone and pretended she had just heard something.”
Ethan turned away.
Twelve minutes.
Maybe Charles could have survived.
Maybe not.
They would never know.
“What was in the folder?”
Alice looked confused.
“I don’t know. Victoria took it.”
“Where?”
“She hid it.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know.”
Ethan turned.
“You kidnapped a child for this woman, followed my father, watched him fall, and you still expect me to believe you don’t know?”
Alice flinched.
“She didn’t trust me after Charles.”
“Because you had a conscience?”
“Because I started asking questions.”
Alice looked at Chen.
“I know one thing.”
“What?”
“Victoria kept what she called her ‘insurance box.’”
Ethan remembered the pillow.
“Where?”
“Not the house.”
“Then where?”
Alice hesitated.
“Her father’s old property.”
“Which property?”
“The Sinclair summer estate in Maine.”
Chen began taking notes.
“Address?”
Alice gave it.
Ethan frowned.
Victoria’s family had sold the estate years earlier.
Or claimed to.
Alice explained a shell corporation still owned it.
Detective Chen obtained a warrant.
By late afternoon, Maine authorities searched the property.
In an attic wall they found a steel lockbox.
Inside:
Passports.
Cash.
More medication.
A handwritten ledger.
And Charles Blackwood’s missing folder.
The folder contained copies of every suspicious transaction he had found before his death.
But there was something else.
A sealed envelope.
On the front, written in Charles’s handwriting:
ETHAN — IF SOMETHING HAPPENS TO ME
Ethan sat alone in his father’s study when Chen handed it to him.
For several minutes he could not open it.
Finally he broke the seal.
Inside were six handwritten pages.
Charles had written:
Son, if you’re reading this because I’m gone, then I waited too long to tell you something.
Ethan continued.
Charles described his suspicion that someone was stealing money.
His growing concerns about Victoria.
His distrust of Daniel.
But the final paragraphs were different.
I taught you to protect this company as if it were family. That was my mistake. A company is not family. It cannot love you. It will not sit beside you when you are old. It will not remember your birthday unless someone programs a reminder.
Ethan’s eyes blurred.
You have become very good at building what can be measured and very bad at protecting what cannot. Do not repeat my life.
Ethan stopped reading.
He remembered canceled dinners.
Missed holidays.
The father he loved but rarely made time for.
He forced himself to continue.
If I get the chance, I will tell you this in person and you can laugh at your sentimental old man. If I don’t, then listen once. Choose people over pride. Choose truth over appearances. And when someone without power tells you something is wrong, listen before the powerful person explains why they must be mistaken.
Ethan covered his mouth.
Elena stood quietly at the doorway.
She had come to tell him Sofia wanted to say goodbye before they went home.
She saw the letter.
“I can come back.”
“No.”
Ethan wiped his face.
“Stay.”
She entered.
“My father wrote this before he died.”
Elena sat across from him.
“He knew.”
“Some of it.”
Ethan looked at her.
“He wrote that I should listen when someone without power says something is wrong.”
Elena gave a sad smile.
“He sounds smarter than most billionaires.”
Ethan laughed through tears.
“He would have liked you.”
“Maybe.”
“He did.”
Elena frowned.
“What?”
Ethan searched his memory.
“My father used to ask about Sofia.”
Elena stared.
“He knew her name?”
“Yes.”
“He never talked to me much.”
“He noticed people.”
Ethan looked toward the photograph of Charles on the shelf.
“More than I did.”
Elena shook her head.
“You noticed when it mattered.”
“Did I?”
“You believed me.”
“After Victoria almost caught you.”
“You still believed me.”
Ethan folded the letter.
“Sofia saved herself before any of us reached her.”
“She’s grounded until she’s forty.”
He smiled.
“That seems reasonable.”
Elena stood.
“We should go.”
Ethan looked around the empty study.
“For the first time in my life, I don’t know what I’m supposed to do tomorrow.”
Elena considered that.
“Have breakfast.”
He looked at her.
“That’s your advice?”
“Start small.”
“With whom?”
“Your mother.”
She smiled.
“And maybe don’t schedule a merger during it.”
Ethan laughed.
The next morning, he did exactly that.
He ate breakfast with Margaret.
No phones.
No assistants.
No board reports.
Afterward he visited his father’s grave.
For the first time since the funeral, Ethan spoke aloud.
“I’m sorry.”
Wind moved through the trees.
No answer came.
But he continued.
“I should have come home.”
He stood there for almost an hour.
Then his phone buzzed.
A message from Detective Chen.
Victoria Sinclair has requested to speak with you. Says she’ll confess if you come personally.
Ethan stared at the screen.
One final conversation.
He knew it was probably another manipulation.
But there was one question only Victoria could answer.
Why?
Why destroy a family that had welcomed her?
Why poison people who trusted her?
May you like
Why build a future around ruin?
And Ethan decided he wanted to hear the answer from her mouth.
