Chapter 9 - THE VOICE ON THE LINE
Leah froze the affected accounts.
The transfer had been stopped because a bank employee noticed the destination was new.
We requested the verification recording.
My own voice came through the speaker.
“Yes.
I approve the transfer.
Proceed today.”
Grace stared at me.
I had been sitting with her when the call occurred.
Someone had used a manufactured recording of my voice.
The number displayed to the bank matched the hotel’s main switchboard.
Hotel management checked the routing records.
The call had come through an outside line and had been transferred by an employee who believed he was assisting my office.
Owen’s office.
I wanted to confront him.
Leah told me what that would accomplish.
“He’ll deny it and change whatever he can still change.”
“So we wait?”
“We preserve.
Then we give him something worth acting on.”
We created three versions of a short memo about my plans for the archive.
Each contained a different appointment time.
One went to Owen through the corporate secretary.
One went to a director who had strongly supported the acquisition.
The third stayed with Leah.
The police knew what we were doing.
No false evidence.
No fabricated crime.
Just three possible times for a real visit.
Owen’s copy said I would arrive at the archive at nine the following morning.
At eight-fifteen, the facility manager received a removal request.
The instructions claimed I had authorized disposal of damaged records before my arrival.
Leah called him immediately.
“Do not release anything.”
The request carried Owen’s name.
He had given us an action connected directly to the information sent to him.
By noon, the board had enough concerns to suspend his access pending investigation.
He called me seventeen times.
I answered the eighteenth.
“You’re destroying this company,” he said.
“By keeping its records?”
“You don’t understand what your father left.”
“Then explain it.”
“He built you a clean life with dirty money.”
I looked at the original instruction Leah had recovered.
DO NOT RELEASE.
“Show me.”
Owen laughed without humor.
“You still think this started with Elise.”
The line went dead.
Seconds later, a courier delivered an envelope to Leah’s office.
Inside was a copy of my father’s will.
A paragraph I didn’t remember had been underlined.
May you like
Beside it, someone had written:
ASK WHAT HAPPENS IF YOU MARRY.
