Chapter 4 - Emily Had Known David First
David asked to see the old photograph of Emily.
He held it carefully.
“I met your wife before I met you.”
Michael stared.
Emily had died three years earlier after a sudden brain aneurysm.
David explained that Emily contacted him seven years ago.
She had been reviewing charitable donations for a nonprofit hospital
network.
She noticed payments from one of the same shell companies David was
investigating.
They exchanged information.
Emily discovered something connecting the financial network to Carter
Sentinel.
But she never told Michael.
“Why?”
“She was trying to verify it first.”
Michael hated the answer.
Not because he blamed Emily.
Because secrecy seemed to be everywhere.
Helen.
David.
Emily.
Everyone deciding what he should know.
David had brought copies of Emily’s old emails.
One contained a warning:
If anything happens to me, don’t assume Michael is the target.
Michael read it twice.
“Then who was?”
David looked toward Noah and Lily upstairs.
“I think she meant the children.”
Michael stood.
“No.”
“I’m not saying someone wanted to hurt them then.”
“Then what are you saying?”
“Emily created something before she died.”
A trust.
Not merely money.
She placed controlling voting shares of Carter Sentinel into a family
trust.
Michael could manage them.
But if he sold the company under certain conditions, a portion
automatically transferred to Noah and Lily when they reached adulthood.
Someone trying to force a sale could not obtain complete control without
addressing those shares.
Michael’s children were obstacles.
That explained the surveillance photographs.
It did not explain why Victor told Helen to remove the children before
Michael came home.
Detective Collins asked the obvious question.
“Remove them where?”
Helen closed her eyes.
“A safe house.”
“Whose?”
“Victor’s.”
Michael stared.
“You were going to hand my children to that man?”
“No.”
“But he expected you to.”
“Yes.”
Helen admitted she had pretended to cooperate.
Victor believed she would take the children to a rented house outside
Alexandria.
Helen intended to drive them instead to a police station.
“Why not call police immediately?”
“Because Victor showed me photographs of you.”
Michael held up the envelope.
“These?”
“No.”
Helen looked at David.
“Different photographs.”
David’s expression changed.
May you like
Helen whispered:
“They showed David standing over a dead man.”
