Chapter 9 - Charles Carried His Own Guilt
Richard did not want another revelation about his father.
He got one anyway.
Marina toll records placed Charles nearby.
Evelyn admitted Charles left the house that night.
He told her he was meeting Thomas.
Richard asked the question directly.
“Did Dad sabotage the boat?”
Evelyn cried.
“I don’t know.”
Michael Grant provided another piece.
Charles confessed years later that he had gone to the marina intending
to frighten Thomas.
He wanted to disable the boat temporarily so Thomas would miss a meeting
with auditors.
But when Charles arrived, he found one hydraulic line already damaged.
He panicked.
Instead of reporting it, he left.
“Why?”
“Because he thought Jonathan had done it.”
Richard stared.
“And then Thomas died.”
“Yes.”
Charles carried guilt because he knew something was wrong and did
nothing.
That guilt made Jonathan’s later manipulation easier.
But the second cut line remained unexplained.
Investigators reexamined old photographs.
The second cut was clean.
Professional.
Then David remembered a detail.
A distinctive red-handled tool left near the marina.
The same type used by Cole estate maintenance crews.
Richard requested old personnel records.
One employee had access to the marina and the mansion.
Frank Mercer.
Vanessa stared at the name.
“My stepfather.”
Richard felt the room tilt.
Vanessa’s mother Susan had married Frank Mercer after Thomas’s death.
Vanessa later used Mercer as part of her identity before changing it.
“Why would Frank kill Thomas?”
Susan answered over the phone.
“Because he loved me.”
Silence.
Frank knew about Susan’s relationship with Thomas.
He resented Thomas.
But jealousy alone was not enough.
Then Susan revealed Frank also worked for Jonathan.
He handled maintenance at several Cole properties.
Jonathan had sent him to the marina.
“For what?”
Susan hesitated.
“To retrieve documents from Thomas’s boat.”
Investigators traced Frank.
He had died ten years earlier.
No confession existed.
No definitive proof he cut the line.
The case against him remained circumstantial.
Richard refused to turn suspicion into certainty.
Then the digoxin investigation produced stronger evidence.
Jonathan’s former assistant found archived billing records.
Eight years earlier, Jonathan paid a private physician for a
prescription under a false patient name.
Digoxin.
Two days before Charles died.
Richard stared.
That was not proof Jonathan administered it.
But it was evidence he obtained it.
Police searched Jonathan’s old storage unit under warrant.
They found financial records.
Blackmail files.
Copies of Evelyn’s payments.
And a small digital recorder.
One file was dated the night Charles died.
Jonathan’s voice:
“Drink it. You look terrible.”
Charles:
“What did you put in this?”
Then a crash.
Jonathan:
“Nothing you haven’t earned.”
The recording ended.
Richard sat perfectly still.
For eight years, the truth had existed in Jonathan’s own archive.
But investigators found something even stranger.
The file metadata showed it had been copied recently.
Someone else had accessed Jonathan’s storage before police.
May you like
Michael Grant.
And Michael had not told anyone.
