Chapter 7 - Charles Helped Create Northstar
Victor brought twenty years of records.
Northstar began as an illegal slush fund.
Charles and Victor created it to pay bribes connected to early
development projects.
Marcus joined later as a young accountant.
For years, the three men concealed payments.
Then Charles changed.
According to Victor, Daniel’s birth forced him to reconsider what he was
building.
He wanted out.
Victor did not.
Marcus certainly did not.
The brothers split.
Charles began quietly documenting the scheme.
Victor believed Charles planned to confess.
“Did you threaten him?” Daniel asked.
“Yes.”
Victor did not hide it.
“Did you kill him?”
“No.”
Investigators later verified Victor was in London when Charles died.
That did not eliminate indirect involvement.
But evidence mattered.
Victor claimed Marcus visited Charles the evening before his death.
Security logs confirmed Marcus entered the Kane estate.
He stayed forty-three minutes.
Charles died the next morning.
Medical records showed a heart attack consistent with his known cardiac
disease.
No immediate evidence proved foul play.
Daniel refused to invent certainty.
Then Emma asked a question nobody else had.
“If Charles was collecting evidence, where did he keep it?”
Victor looked at her.
“Your maid is smarter than half your board.”
Daniel answered coldly:
“Her name is Emma.”
Victor nodded.
“Emma is right.”
Charles kept a physical ledger because he distrusted digital systems.
Victor had searched for it after Charles died.
Never found it.
Marcus had searched too.
Daniel suddenly remembered his father’s old brass desk clock.
Charles once told him:
“Never trust a clock that only tells time.”
The clock still sat in Daniel’s library.
Inside its wooden base, investigators found a narrow compartment.
There was no ledger.
Only a key.
And a note.
DANIEL — IF YOU FOUND THIS, DON’T TRUST THE PERSON WHO HELPED YOU FIND
IT.
Everyone stared at one another.
Emma stepped back.
Ethan went silent.
Victor smiled without humor.
May you like
Charles had anticipated betrayal.
But he had not named the betrayer.
