Chapter 8 - Someone Inside Bennett Helped The Sterlings
The access logs belonged to Martin Cole, Bennett Medical’s chief
financial officer.
Martin had worked with Thomas for nineteen years.
Margaret trusted him.
Daniel did too.
Martin initially denied involvement.
Then investigators showed him the device records.
He admitted giving Richard Sterling archived emails.
He claimed he never knew they would be altered.
Why give them at all?
Because Richard had documents proving Thomas Bennett concealed his early
investment.
Martin believed a lawsuit could destroy the company.
He wanted a private settlement.
Richard promised that if Maxwell gained voting authority through Chloe,
the dispute could be resolved quietly.
Martin convinced himself he was protecting employees.
Daniel asked:
“Did Chloe authorize you to solve her inheritance problem for her?”
Martin said nothing.
Again, protection had become control.
But Martin revealed something important.
Richard’s claim was not entirely false.
He had invested in Thomas’s early research.
Bank records showed a substantial payment twenty-eight years earlier.
Thomas later bought Richard out.
The question was whether the buyout was valid.
Richard claimed his signature was forged.
Martin had never verified it.
The original agreement was missing.
Margaret remembered Thomas keeping early company documents in a locked
cabinet at their old lake house.
The property had been sold after his death.
Daniel contacted the current owner.
The cabinet remained in a storage room because nobody had found the key.
Chloe knew where it was.
Thomas had given her a small brass key when she turned eighteen.
She always thought it opened a jewelry box.
The next morning, with counsel and the owner’s permission, they opened
the cabinet.
Inside was the original buyout agreement.
Richard’s signature appeared on it.
So did the signature of a witness.
Cecelia Sterling.
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Maxwell’s mother had witnessed her husband selling his stake.
Yet she had spent months telling Chloe Thomas stole it.
