Chapter 10 - What Victoria Knew.
Victoria did not deny Margaret's final sentence.
She simply sat down.
For the first time since Clair had known her, the elegant woman in the pink gown looked smaller than the room around her.
Ethan remained standing beside the laptop.
"What was my mother confronting Daniel about?"
Victoria pressed both palms together.
"Play the recording."
Ethan stared at her.
"Tell me first."
"If I tell you, you'll think I'm changing it to save myself."
"Aren't you?"
"Yes."
The honesty surprised him.
Victoria looked at Clair.
"And I'm tired of doing that."
Ethan opened the first audio file in the FINAL folder.
The timestamp read 2:17:18 A.M.
Margaret's voice came through clearly.
"You signed it."
Victoria answered.
"I thought Ethan had already approved it."
"You signed a transfer of voting control without speaking to your husband."
"Daniel said the board needed it before Singapore opened."
"Daniel says whatever he needs to say to the person he needs to use."
The real Victoria closed her eyes.
The recording continued.
Margaret said, "Do you know where Halcyon sent the money after it gained control?"
"No."
"Then look."
Paper rustled.
Victoria's younger voice became strained.
"What is this?"
"Forty-eight million dollars moved through three consulting entities in four months."
"That's impossible."
"No."
Margaret's voice turned hard.
"It is theft."
Ethan paused the recording.
"Forty-eight million?"
Victoria nodded.
"I learned that number that night."
"And you never told me."
"I tried."
"When?"
"The morning after your mother died."
Ethan stared at her.
"You told me she fell."
"I told you what Daniel told everyone to say."
Ethan looked as if the room had tilted.
Victoria continued before he could speak.
"He said if I accused him without proof, he would release the proxy with my signature and say I authorized the transfers."
"You did authorize the proxy."
"Yes."
"And you let that fear keep you silent for six months."
"Yes."
Clair watched Victoria's face.
There was guilt there.
Not innocence.
But guilt was different from the certainty Clair had felt earlier.
Ethan pressed play.
On the recording, Margaret said, "You will call Ethan now."
Victoria replied, "He is twelve hours ahead and in a meeting."
"I do not care if he is standing in front of the prime minister."
A door opened.
Daniel's voice entered the recording.
"No one is calling Ethan."
Clair felt the hairs rise on her arms.
Margaret answered immediately.
"You deleted the camera hour once already, Daniel."
"I can do it again."
Daniel's voice was calm.
"That is not the threat you think it is."
"It is not a threat."
Margaret paused.
"It is a timestamp."
There was a sound like a folder striking the desk.
Daniel said, "You have been building a case against me for months."
"I have been building a record."
"For whom?"
"For my son."
"And the girl?"
Clair's jaw tightened.
Margaret's reply came without hesitation.
"For my daughter too, if she will allow me to call her that someday."
Clair covered her face.
She did not want the words to matter.
They did.
Ethan paused the recording again.
No one spoke for several seconds.
Then Clair lowered her hands.
"Keep going."
Ethan pressed play.
Daniel said, "Clair changes nothing."
Margaret answered, "She changes the thing you care about most."
"The voting threshold."
"Yes."
"And if she refuses it?"
"Then at least the refusal will belong to her."
Clair looked at Ethan.
The same phrase.
At midnight, Ethan had said his regret should belong to him.
Maybe that stubbornness was a Hale trait after all.
On the recording, Victoria said, "Daniel, give me the transfer records."
"No."
"I signed the proxy because you lied to me."
"You signed it because you were afraid Margaret would hand thirty percent of Ethan's legacy to a woman who cleaned your floors."
Silence followed.
Clair looked at Victoria.
Victoria did not hide.
"That part is true," she whispered.
The recording continued.
Margaret said, "And that is your shame, Victoria."
"It is not Clair's."
Clair swallowed hard.
Daniel's voice sharpened.
"This conversation is over."
A chair scraped.
Margaret said, "Do not touch that drive."
Then came several seconds of overlapping voices.
Victoria told Daniel to stop.
Margaret demanded the phone.
Something hit the floor.
Then Margaret gasped.
The sound was small.
Ethan's hand moved toward the laptop, but Clair caught his wrist.
"Don't stop it."
He looked at her.
She shook her head.
They listened.
Margaret's breathing became uneven.
Victoria's voice changed instantly.
"Margaret?"
A chair scraped again.
"Daniel, call an ambulance."
Daniel answered, "Wait."
"What do you mean wait?"
"She has medication."
"Call someone."
"If we call from this room, the police will see everything."
"I don't care."
"You will when they ask why your signature is on the proxy."
Victoria screamed his name once.
Not theatrically.
Not loudly.
With disbelief.
Then Margaret spoke.
Her voice was weak.
"Victoria."
"Yes."
"Call Ethan."
"I will."
"Now."
The next sound was Daniel taking the phone.
Victoria said, "Give it back."
Daniel answered, "Think."
"She needs help."
"If this leaves the room tonight, everything collapses."
"What is wrong with you?"
Another thirty seconds passed.
Margaret's breathing became worse.
Clair could not stop crying now.
Ethan stood completely rigid.
Then the recording cut.
The second audio file began automatically.
Timestamp 2:42 A.M.
Victoria was crying.
"Call them."
Daniel said, "We move her to the west hall first."
"No."
"If paramedics find her here, they find the documents."
"I said no."
Margaret whispered something.
Ethan leaned closer.
Thomas increased the volume.
Margaret said, "Don't let him move me."
Victoria answered, "I won't."
Then Daniel said, "If you want Ethan to survive this company, you will help me."
The recording ended.
Ethan did not move.
Clair wanted to say something.
There was nothing adequate.
Finally, Ethan looked at Victoria.
"How long?"
Victoria's eyes were wet.
"What?"
"How long before you called for help?"
She looked down.
"Three hours."
Ethan's face broke.
Not dramatically.
His shoulders simply lowered, as if something had been removed from inside him.
"Three hours."
"I tried to leave."
"You had a phone."
"Daniel took it."
"There were staff in the house."
"He threatened to destroy you."
"My mother was dying."
"I know."
"You helped move her."
Victoria covered her mouth.
"Yes."
Clair watched Ethan turn away.
No one followed him.
He stood before the hidden shelves with one hand pressed against the wall.
Thomas's eyes were filled with tears.
Clair understood that everyone in the room had lost Margaret differently.
Ethan lost a mother.
Thomas lost a woman he had served most of his adult life.
Victoria lost the chance to become the person she might have been if fear had not made every decision for her.
And Clair had lost a woman she had not known she was allowed to mourn as family.
Ethan finally turned back.
"Did Daniel cause her collapse?"
Victoria shook her head.
"No."
"He never struck her."
"Margaret had a heart condition."
"The medical report said that."
"Yes."
"But he delayed help."
"Yes."
"And you helped hide where she collapsed."
"Yes."
Ethan's eyes became cold.
"Then tomorrow morning, you tell the truth."
Victoria looked at him.
"To whom?"
"Everyone who asks."
The board.
The attorneys.
The authorities.
Me.
Clair.
Victoria nodded.
Ethan stepped toward the laptop.
"Thomas, make three copies of every file."
"Already started."
"Leon gets one."
"Yes, sir."
"Outside counsel gets another."
"Yes."
Ethan looked at Clair.
"You get the third."
Clair stared at him.
"Why?"
"Because this family has already hidden your own history from you once."
His voice was quiet.
"I'm not doing it again."
Then Ethan opened the transfer records in the FINAL folder.
Forty-eight million dollars moved across the screen in a maze of companies.
One name appeared again and again.
Halcyon Strategic Holdings.
Clair leaned closer.
The final beneficiary account was not Daniel Mercer's.
It belonged to someone else.
Victoria saw the name and stood so quickly her chair almost fell.
"No."
Ethan read it aloud.
"Charles Mercer."
May you like
Daniel's father.
A man everyone believed had been dead for four years.
