Paul leaned back.
“Why didn’t you tell us sooner?”
“I took what I found to an attorney and the police. I needed the records preserved before anyone knew where I was looking.”
Nobody asked me to leave the important decisions to someone else.
By the end of the meeting, the board had suspended Daniel and Margaret pending the investigations and appointed an interim chief executive.
For the first time in months, I could see a path toward saving my father’s company.
The hardest discovery came four days later.
Not from the financial records.
From the messages investigators recovered.
Ramirez asked whether I wanted Nora present before he explained.
I said yes.
There were conversations about my trip, the luggage, and the report Daniel intended to make.
But the messages also revealed what was supposed to happen afterward.
While I dealt with detention and tried to explain the weapon, Daniel planned to present the board with a statement expressing concern about my “increasingly erratic behavior.”
He had already drafted it.
He would announce that I was stepping away from company affairs.
He would describe himself as a devastated husband doing his best to protect the business.
There was even a photograph selected for the announcement.
Our anniversary portrait.
His arm around my waist.
My face turned toward his.
Below it, Margaret had written:
Use this one. You look supportive.
Nora reached for my hand.
I kept looking at the photograph.
That morning, I had thought the gray shirt would be the detail I remembered forever.
I had been wrong.
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