Chapter 10 - VICTOR
Victor Kane was forty-three.
Margaret had always introduced him as the son of an old family friend.
He had worked security for us since I was a teenager.
He taught me how to drive.
How to shoot.
How to fight.
He stood behind Margaret at every funeral, every wedding, every board meeting.
And he was her son.
Ramirez put him in an interrogation room.
Victor asked to see me.
I almost refused.
Then I remembered Emily.
I went in.
Victor looked exhausted.
“You know.”
“Yes.”
“About Margaret.”
“Yes.”
“About me.”
“Yes.”
I sat across from him.
“Did you kill my wife?”
His eyes closed.
“Victor.”
“No.”
“Did you touch her car?”
“No.”
“Did you arrange it?”
He looked at me.
“Yes.”
My hands curled into fists.
“Why?”
“Margaret told me Emily planned to take Noah overseas and cut you off.”
“You believed her?”
“I believed my mother.”
“So Emily died because you believed a liar.”
Victor looked destroyed.
“I didn’t know the mechanic would cut the brake line.”
“But you paid him.”
“Yes.”
“To scare her?”
“That’s what I thought.”
I leaned forward.
“She had a newborn.”
“I know.”
“No, you don’t.”
Victor looked away.
I wanted to hit him.
Instead, I asked the question that mattered.
“Where is Margaret?”
“I don’t know.”
“Wrong answer.”
“I’m serious.”
“She attacked Samuel.”
“She thinks Samuel has the original trust ledger.”
“What ledger?”
“The one showing every dollar she stole.”
“Why does she care now? Her life is already over.”
Victor laughed bitterly.
“You still don’t understand Margaret.”
“Then explain her.”
“She doesn’t care about prison.”
“What does she care about?”
“Winning.”
Victor leaned forward.
“She believes the Mercer estate should have gone to me.”
“It never could.”
“I know.”
“Because you’re not Thomas’s son.”
Victor nodded.
“Margaret spent decades trying to change that.”
“How?”
“Forgery. Adoption filings. DNA manipulation. Whatever she could.”
“But Noah ended it.”
“Yes.”
“Because once Noah was born, the trust became irrevocable.”
Victor’s face tightened.
“That’s why she wanted Emily gone. She thought she could raise Noah and control the trust through him.”
“And when I started investigating?”
“She realized you’d never let her.”
“So she tried to kill Noah.”
Victor nodded once.
My stomach turned.
Then Ramirez entered.
“We found Samuel.”
I stood.
“Alive?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“Walking along Route 9.”
“And Margaret?”
“Gone.”
Samuel had given police something.
A key.
Attached to it was a tag.
MERCER DEVELOPMENT — ARCHIVE 7.
Victor saw the photograph.
His face changed instantly.
“What?”
He stood.
“You need to get everyone out of the corporate building.”
“Why?”
“Because Archive 7 isn’t an archive.”
He looked at Ramirez.
“It’s the old chemical storage room.”
May you like
Then he looked at me.
“And Margaret knows how to destroy the entire building from inside it.”
