Chapter 16 - Page Seventeen
They recovered the scanned copy of page seventeen from an old fax archive.
At first, it looked meaningless.
A list of warehouse maintenance expenses.
Catherine had circled several numbers.
Then 8.
Michael recognized the last three.
August 14, 1931.
The construction date engraved on the old Sterling warehouse.
The building had been abandoned fifteen years earlier.
Richard still owned it.
Willow, Michael, Naomi, and a court-appointed officer entered the warehouse that night under an emergency preservation order.
The place smelled of dust and rust.
Willow carried Catherine’s handwritten map.
They found the original office.
Then the original accounting room.
Behind a metal cabinet was a wall safe.
The code was Willow’s birthday.
Inside lay a second ledger.
Microfilm.
Bank records.
And a notarized video transcript from Catherine.
Naomi stared at the documents.
“This is enough to authenticate the entire chain.”
Michael found one envelope addressed to him.
He did not open it.
Another was addressed to Willow.
She did.
Sweetheart,
If you ever read this, then I failed to keep this ugliness away from you.
Do not fight for my shares because they are valuable.
Fight only if someone tries to convince you that power makes cruelty respectable.
Willow’s tears fell onto the paper.
The next lines changed everything.
Richard’s greatest vulnerability is not my forty-nine percent.
It is Edward’s two.
Because he never legally owned them.
Without Edward’s shares, several later corporate votes were invalid.
Naomi immediately understood.
“If Richard never controlled Edward’s shares, some of the transactions that built Sterling Holdings may be challengeable.”
Willow stared at the mountains of paperwork.
Not just Catherine’s ownership.
Richard’s control itself.
Then they discovered a bank transfer.
Three million dollars.
Paid twenty-six years earlier.
From a Sterling shell company.
To Dr. Martin Kelso.
The physician who had declared Edward mentally incompetent.
Another payment followed two weeks later.
To the private facility.
Naomi whispered, “We have him.”
Michael looked at Willow.
“No.”
Willow understood.
“We have the truth.”
Her phone rang.
Lucas.
She answered.
His voice was frantic.
“Willow, don’t go to the warehouse.”
She looked around.
“Too late.”
Lucas inhaled sharply.
May you like
“My father knows.”
The lights went out.
