Chapter 5 - The Best Man
Charles Voss had known me since I was twelve.
He taught me to drive a manual transmission.
He attended my college graduation.
He sat beside me at my mother's funeral.
When Dad became ill, Charles practically ran Mercer Aerospace.
If betrayal had a face, I never imagined it would be his.
But at 11:42 that night, security footage showed Charles entering the police station where Vanessa was being held.
Forty minutes later, Vanessa walked out.
I called Charles.
“Where are you?”
“At home.”
A lie.
I looked at the live feed Daniel had pulled from a traffic camera outside the station.
Charles stood beside Vanessa.
“Interesting.”
He paused.
“Why?”
“Because I'm looking at you.”
Silence.
Then Charles sighed.
“You weren't supposed to find out like this.”
Those words hurt more than denial.
“Find out what?”
“We need to talk.”
“Tomorrow. Boardroom. Nine.”
“Elijah—”
“Nine.”
I hung up.
The next morning, Charles entered the boardroom and found twelve people waiting.
Corporate counsel.
Outside auditors.
Two board members.
Nathan.
Daniel.
And federal investigators Nathan had contacted after uncovering the fraudulent transfers.
Charles stopped.
“This is unnecessary.”
I gestured toward the chair opposite me.
“Sit.”
He didn't.
“You're making a mistake.”
“Then explain it.”
Charles looked around.
“You've already decided I'm guilty.”
“No.”
I slid a document across the table.
“You decided that when you moved company money.”
His face changed.
We had him.
Over the next hour, the structure emerged.
Charles had approved inflated contracts.
Grant created vendors.
Money disappeared.
Vanessa managed corporate registrations.
My father discovered irregularities.
When Dad became sick, they assumed the investigation would die with him.
Then I unexpectedly met Vanessa at a charity gala.
Or so I believed.
She had been placed there deliberately.
The original plan wasn't marriage.
It was access.
Then I proposed.
Their opportunity became much larger.
“What was supposed to happen after the wedding?” I asked.
Charles said nothing.
Nathan placed another document down.
A draft amendment to my estate plan.
It wasn't valid.
But it revealed intent.
Vanessa would gain significant authority if I became medically incapacitated.
My thoughts returned to the powder in my supplements.
Charles looked at me.
“I never agreed to hurt you.”
“That's your defense?”
“I thought she wanted leverage.”
“You financed her bail.”
“Because she's dangerous when cornered.”
Nathan leaned forward.
“To whom?”
Charles looked at me.
“To everyone.”
My phone buzzed.
Laboratory preliminary results.
The powder in my supplements wasn't immediately lethal.
It was a prescription sedative that, in repeated inappropriate doses, could cause confusion, fatigue, impaired judgment, and other serious effects.
Exactly the symptoms I'd experienced intermittently for months.
Vanessa hadn't needed me dead.
She needed me impaired.
Weak enough to sign.
Confused enough not to question.
Perhaps eventually incapacitated enough for her to take control.
Charles read my expression.
“What?”
I pushed the laboratory report toward him.
His face collapsed.
“I didn't know.”
“You knew enough.”
Federal agents escorted him out twenty minutes later.
As he reached the doorway, he turned.
“Elijah.”
I didn't answer.
“Your father found more than fraud.”
“What?”
Charles looked toward the investigators.
Then back at me.
“He found out why Grant chose Mercer Aerospace in the first place.”
Before he could explain, an agent interrupted and led him away.
Nathan frowned.
“What does that mean?”
I didn't know.
But Dad's flash drive did.
Hidden inside an encrypted folder was a photograph dated twenty-seven years earlier.
My father stood beside three young engineers outside the rented warehouse where Mercer Aerospace began.
One of those men was Grant Holloway's father.
May you like
On the back of the scanned photograph, Dad had written:
THIS STARTED BEFORE ELIJAH EVER KNEW HER NAME.
