Chapter 3 - THE ACCIDENT THAT WASN’T AN ACCIDENT
Three years earlier, Elena had been driving home from a Whitmore Holdings board dinner.
Rain covered the highway.
Her brakes failed approaching a bridge.
Her SUV crashed through the barrier.
Police recovered wreckage from the river.
A badly damaged body was identified as Elena.
Alexander had never questioned it.
Until now.
“There wasn’t supposed to be a body,” Elena told us.
We had moved into the hotel security office.
Alexander sat across from her.
Charles was being kept in another room.
Vanessa, Cynthia, and Dr. Pierce were separated.
I recorded everything.
Elena continued.
“My car never entered the river.”
Alexander frowned.
“The police report—”
“Was altered.”
She explained what happened.
Minutes before the crash, another vehicle struck her SUV.
She lost control.
But instead of falling into the river, her vehicle landed on an access road below the bridge.
She survived.
Barely.
When she woke, she was in a private medical facility.
Dr. Pierce was there.
Alexander went still.
“He treated you?”
“He kept me sedated.”
“For how long?”
“I don’t know.”
Elena looked down.
“Weeks.”
When she finally became fully conscious, Charles visited her.
He told her Alexander had ordered the crash after discovering she had collected evidence against Whitmore Holdings.
“He showed me emails.”
“Fake emails,” Alexander said.
“I know that now.”
But three years ago, injured and isolated, Elena believed them.
Charles told her that if Alexander discovered she had survived, he would finish what he had started.
So Elena disappeared.
Charles gave her another identity.
Another city.
Another life.
“And you believed him?”
Elena looked at Alexander.
“I had evidence your company was stealing millions.”
“My father’s company.”
“You were CEO.”
“I didn’t know.”
“I know.”
The words hurt them both.
Then I asked the obvious question.
“How did Vanessa become involved?”
Elena’s face hardened.
“She found me.”
Alexander leaned forward.
“When?”
“Eight months ago.”
Vanessa had arrived at Elena’s apartment claiming she wanted to help.
She said she had discovered Charles’s crimes.
She said Alexander deserved to know the truth.
Elena believed her.
Two months later, Elena discovered she was pregnant.
Alexander stared at her.
“Who is the father?”
Elena looked directly at him.
“No one you know.”
Alexander absorbed that quietly.
Whatever hope had briefly crossed his face disappeared.
But Elena continued.
“The baby isn’t the reason Vanessa wanted me.”
“Then what was?”
Elena reached into her coat.
She removed a small key.
“The evidence.”
Alexander stared at it.
“What evidence?”
“The original financial ledger.”
She placed the key on the table.
May you like
“Enough to send your father to prison.”
Then the lights went out.
