Chapter 5 - The Woman From the Hallway
Helen Mercer had worked for Arthur Vale for twenty-six years.
Her hands shook as she sat across from Ethan.
“I should’ve stopped her.”
“Stopped what?”
Helen looked at Ethan Jr.
Naomi quietly took the child into the adjoining office.
Only then did Helen speak.
“Vanessa ordered everyone out of the west hallway around eight-thirty.”
“Why?”
“She said there was a plumbing problem.”
Helen shook her head.
“There wasn’t.”
She had gone back for her purse.
Through a partially open service door, she saw Vanessa with the two bodyguards.
Ethan Jr. was there.
So was a decorative chain from one of the gala displays.
Helen heard Vanessa tell the guards:
“His father needs to see enough to lose his mind.”
Ethan’s jaw tightened.
“Did you hear anything else?”
Helen nodded.
“She said, ‘Once Ethan swings, the trust is mine.’”
Silence.
Naomi immediately asked, “Will you testify?”
Helen’s face went pale.
“I don’t know.”
“Why?”
Helen pulled an envelope from her purse.
Inside was a photograph of Helen’s granddaughter leaving school.
Someone had placed it beneath Helen’s windshield wiper that morning.
No message.
None was necessary.
Ethan stared at the photograph.
Vanessa wasn’t just trying to steal control of the trust.
She was threatening anyone who could prove it.
Then Helen remembered something.
“The security system.”
“It was disabled.”
“The main one was.”
Helen looked directly at Ethan.
“Your grandfather never trusted one system.”
Ethan leaned forward.
“What are you saying?”
“After someone broke into his office last year, Arthur installed a second camera network.”
“Where are the recordings?”
“I don’t know.”
“Who installed it?”
Helen hesitated.
“Claire.”
Ethan went still.
His dead wife had installed a secret surveillance system for his grandfather.
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And somehow, Vanessa either didn’t know it existed...
Or had spent the last two years trying to find it.
