Chapter 4 - Margaret Admits Why Cameras Were Hidden
Margaret finally spoke with Daniel in the presence of detectives.
She admitted hiring Victor.
Three months earlier, she discovered money disappearing from the Whitmore Foundation.
Not millions.
Small transfers.
Always under reporting thresholds.
The money moved into a company called Meridian House.
Daniel recognized the name.
It had belonged to his father, Charles.
The company supposedly closed eleven years earlier.
Margaret feared someone from Charles’s past had returned.
“Why not tell me?”
“Because the last time you investigated your father’s business, you nearly lost everything.”
“That was my decision to make.”
Margaret lowered her eyes.
“I know.”
She claimed the surveillance system was intended to identify whoever was accessing old accounts during family events.
Victor installed it.
But Margaret insisted she never photographed Emily or labeled her a target.
Daniel asked what she meant when Emily overheard her saying, “You promised nobody would touch her.”
Margaret’s face changed.
She had been speaking to a man named Henry Cole.
Charles’s former estate manager.
Henry had contacted Margaret two months earlier claiming he knew who was stealing.
He demanded money for information.
Margaret secretly met him.
Then Henry warned her that someone inside the family was involved.
“Who?”
“He wouldn’t say.”
Daniel asked where Henry was.
Margaret hesitated.
“Nobody has seen him in six days.”
Police checked.
Henry Cole had indeed been reported missing.
Then an officer entered with recovered data from the phone.
One recording captured Margaret’s conversation with Henry.
Henry said:
“If Emily opens Charles’s ledger, she’ll learn why her mother really left.”
Daniel stopped breathing.
Emily’s mother, Laura, had supposedly abandoned the family when Emily was four.
Daniel had raised his daughter believing Laura chose another life.
Margaret looked sick.
Daniel whispered:
“What does my daughter’s mother have to do with Dad’s ledger?”
May you like
Margaret did not answer.
That silence told him the answer was going to hurt.
