Chapter 5 - Eleanor’s Death Opens Again
Gabriel did not sleep.
Neither did Sarah.
By two in the morning, police had taken statements, building security had locked every elevator, and detectives were reviewing access logs.
Ethan had disappeared through a private service stairwell.
Someone had opened the emergency door for him from a lower floor.
That meant he had help.
Again.
Gabriel stood in his mother’s old study with the photograph on the desk.
Sarah remained near the doorway.
“You don’t have to stay,” he said.
“I know.”
She stayed anyway.
Gabriel looked older than he had at dinner.
Not physically.
Emotionally.
As though twenty years of certainty had collapsed in one night.
“My mother hated North Crown,” he said.
Sarah frowned.
“The events company?”
He nodded.
“She thought their invoices were inflated. Ethan told her she was becoming paranoid.”
Sarah glanced at the photograph.
“What happened after that?”
“Two weeks later, she died.”
The words were flat.
His mother’s car had gone through a guardrail in Connecticut during a storm.
The official report blamed wet pavement.
Gabriel had believed it.
For six years.
Sarah stepped closer.
“Did she leave you anything?”
“A voicemail.”
His voice tightened.
“I deleted it after the funeral.”
Sarah was stunned. “Why?”
“Because I listened to it every night for a month.”
He looked at the floor.
“She sounded afraid. I couldn’t stand hearing it anymore.”
Sarah understood regret too well.
It was the habit of punishing yourself with knowledge you did not have when it mattered.
“What did she say?”
Gabriel closed his eyes.
“She said, ‘If something happens, look at the foundation accounts. Don’t trust the first person who tells you everything is fine.’”
Sarah’s breath caught.
“Ethan told you everything was fine.”
“Yes.”
Gabriel opened his eyes.
“And I believed him.”
A soft knock came at the door.
Maya entered carrying a tablet.
“We found something.”
She placed it on the desk.
Building records showed that Ethan’s access card had not opened the service door.
A temporary guest credential had.
Registered to Victoria.
Gabriel exhaled slowly.
“So they planned his escape.”
“Looks that way.”
Maya hesitated.
“There’s more.”
She had pulled archival access logs from six years earlier.
During the week before Eleanor Sterling died, someone repeatedly entered the Foundation’s records room after midnight.
Ethan.
But one night showed a second badge.
Gabriel’s.
He stared at the screen.
“I wasn’t in New York that night.”
Maya nodded. “I know. Your travel records put you in Chicago.”
Sarah felt cold.
Someone had cloned Gabriel’s credentials years ago.
Gabriel rubbed his forehead.
“How long has this been happening?”
Maya scrolled.
“At least six years.”
Then Sarah noticed a name in the archived visitor log.
Not Victoria.
Not Ethan.
A third person.
Daniel Langley.
Victoria’s father.
Gabriel looked at the screen and went rigid.
Daniel Langley had been Eleanor Sterling’s attorney.
He had also handled her estate after her death.
Sarah whispered, “Victoria’s father was involved?”
Gabriel stared at the name.
“He told me my mother’s files were clean.”
The old photograph suddenly made sense in a more frightening way.
This had not started with Sarah.
It had not even started with Victoria.
Whatever she had stumbled into had been moving through the Sterling family for years.
And now someone had hurt her because she saw the edge of it.
Gabriel reached for the phone.
“I’m calling Daniel.”
Sarah shook her head.
“No.”
He looked at her.
“If he’s involved, calling him tells him what we know.”
Gabriel studied her for a long moment.
Then he put the phone down.
May you like
For the first time that night, he was not looking at Sarah like an employee.
He was looking at her like the only person in the room who had not lied to him.
