Chapter 3
My father, Charles Vale, died seven years earlier.
He spent the final decade of his life developing a safer battery system.
After a laboratory fire destroyed his research, he abandoned the project.
Six months later, he suffered a heart attack.
I believed grief killed him.
Maya’s photographs suggested something else.
They showed Jonathan and Florence inside Dad’s laboratory three days before the fire.
At the time, Jonathan was a business-school student.
Florence worked as an intellectual-property consultant.
My father had hired her to protect his patents.
She stole them instead.
“Where did you find these?” I asked.
“On a hidden company server.”
Maya opened another document.
It was a transfer agreement carrying Dad’s signature.
The agreement gave Florence ownership of every battery patent for one dollar.
“My father never signed this.”
“I know. The file metadata says it was created two weeks after his death.”
The company had been built on forgery.
The federal team expanded its investigation.
Agents searched Mercer Dynamics’ headquarters.
Jonathan’s office contained shredded contracts and a second computer hidden beneath the floor.
Florence’s house contained my father’s original laboratory notebooks.
She had kept them for seven years.
When police questioned her, she claimed Dad gave them to her as a gift.
Then my mother called.
Her name was Margaret Vale.
We had barely spoken since my wedding preparations began.
Mom disliked Jonathan from the start, but she refused to explain why.
I assumed she was judging his family.
Now I wondered what she knew.
“Come to my house,” she said. “Alone.”
Rebecca insisted I bring security.
I left two guards outside and entered.
Mom sat in Dad’s old study.
A metal box rested on the desk.
“I knew Florence stole the research,” she said.
My anger arrived before surprise.
“How long?”
“Seven years.”
“You stayed silent?”
“She threatened you.”
“With what?”
Mom opened the box.
Inside were photographs of my car, apartment, and office.
Some had been taken from across the street.
Florence had monitored me while I attended graduate school.
“She said if Charles reported the theft, you would have an accident,” Mom whispered.
“Did Dad know?”
“Yes.”
“That’s why he abandoned the project.”
“He chose you.”
I sat down because my legs had begun shaking.
“Was the laboratory fire an accident?”
Mom shook her head.
Dad installed a hidden camera after discovering documents were missing.
The recording showed Jonathan pouring accelerant near the prototype room.
Florence waited beside the exit.
They started the fire.
A night custodian was still inside.
He survived but suffered permanent injuries.
“Why didn’t you give this to police?”
“Charles wanted to. Then Florence sent him a photograph of you sleeping.”
I remembered waking one night to find my apartment window open.
Police said I had probably forgotten to lock it.
Someone had entered my room.
Dad destroyed the public copies of his research and told Florence she could keep what she stole.
He hoped she would leave us alone.
“But she didn’t,” I said.
“No.”
Years later, Jonathan approached me at a restaurant.
He pretended our meeting was accidental.
Florence wanted access to Vanguard.
When she learned I was leading the fund reviewing Mercer Dynamics, she pushed Jonathan to marry me.
“Why didn’t you warn me?”
Mom began crying.
“I tried.”
“You said his family lacked manners.”
“I was afraid to tell you about the threats.”
“You let me marry the man who burned Dad’s laboratory.”
“I thought Florence only wanted the investment.”
“You thought giving her what she wanted would keep me safe.”
Mom looked down.
“Yes.”
That idea had already killed my father’s work and nearly trapped me in a violent marriage.
Fear had become another inheritance.
I took the evidence box.
“You should have trusted me with the truth.”
“I know.”
As I reached the door, Mom said, “There is something else.”
Dad’s heart attack happened at a restaurant.
Florence attended the same private dinner.
She poured his wine.
The original toxicology report noted an unusual medication in his blood, but the finding disappeared from the final file.
“Are you saying she killed him?”
“I’m saying Charles told her he had created another copy of the fire recording.”
Federal investigators reopened Dad’s death.
Before they could collect Mom’s statement, an explosion shattered the windows.
The study door slammed shut.
Smoke poured beneath it.
May you like
Someone had set fire to the house.
And this time, my mother was trapped inside with me.
