Chapter 4 - Someone Inside Hargrove House Wanted Margaret Gone
The call had come at 2:13 a.m.
I remembered because my partner, Luis Ramirez, complained it was the hour when all good decisions stopped happening.
Single-car crash near an industrial road outside Cicero.
Vehicle on fire.
Male driver unconscious but alive.
No wallet.
No phone.
No plates.
We stabilized him and transported him to Mercy West.
He regained consciousness briefly.
Said one word.
“Margaret.”
I had assumed wife.
Maybe mother.
Then another man appeared at the emergency room.
Said he was family.
Hospital security let him through.
I never saw the patient again.
Two days later, when I tried to finish the electronic report, the call number was gone.
Supervisor said administrative error.
I accepted that.
Why wouldn’t I?
Now Adrian listened without blinking.
“Describe the man who collected him.”
“I barely saw him.”
“Try.”
“Fifties. Gray hair. Expensive coat.”
Adrian showed me photographs.
Executives.
Attorneys.
Security staff.
Then one face.
My stomach tightened.
“That one.”
Adrian’s expression changed.
“Who?”
“Your father’s attorney.”
Margaret whispered:
“Richard Vale.”
No relation to my previous bad-luck fictional mafia universes, thankfully.
Richard Vale had served Hargrove family interests for thirty-five years.
Trusted.
Quiet.
Still employed.
He handled wills.
Trusts.
Private legal settlements.
Including Margaret’s new will.
“Where is he?” Adrian asked.
His security chief checked.
“Office downtown.”
“Bring him.”
I intervened.
“No kidnapping lawyers.”
“I meant ask him to come.”
“You absolutely did not.”
He stared.
Margaret sighed.
“Nora, I’m beginning to understand why he likes you.”
Adrian looked at his mother.
“Mother.”
“Oh, please.”
I ignored that.
Richard Vale arrived voluntarily after Margaret requested him.
He was sixty-seven.
Thin.
Silver-haired.
Polite.
Exactly the man I remembered from the ER.
When he saw me, recognition appeared.
Then disappeared.
Too late.
“You remember me,” I said.
“No.”
“You’re bad at lying.”
Adrian nearly smiled.
Vale sat.
Margaret asked:
“Is Thomas alive?”
Vale did not answer.
She repeated.
“Richard.”
He closed his eyes.
“Yes.”
The room changed.
Margaret began crying.
Adrian did not move.
“How long have you known?”
“Since before the crash.”
“Which crash?” I asked.
He looked at me.
“The plane.”
Thomas never boarded.
He discovered financial evidence that somebody was stealing from Hargrove companies and using criminal accounts tied to rival crews.
He believed Adrian was involved.
Why?
Evidence had Adrian’s authorization.
Forged.
Thomas confronted Richard.
Richard advised him to disappear temporarily while they investigated.
Then the plane Thomas was scheduled to take exploded over the lake.
Somebody expected him onboard.
Thomas realized the conspiracy was lethal.
He stayed dead.
Margaret whispered:
“You let me bury my son.”
Vale’s voice broke.
“I believed telling you would put you in danger.”
“Do not call that protection.”
He looked down.
Apparently every family had learned the same terrible language.
“Six years ago,” I said, “Thomas crashed.”
Vale nodded.
“He was coming to Chicago.”
“Why?”
“He thought he had proof.”
“Of who?”
Vale looked toward Adrian.
“Julian.”
Adrian stood.
“Finally.”
Vale shook his head.
“No.”
“What?”
“Thomas was wrong.”
I almost laughed from frustration.
“He discovered Julian was making payments, yes. But Julian was paying to keep Thomas hidden.”
Margaret stared.
“Julian knew?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Thomas contacted him four years after disappearing.”
So Julian had secretly funded his cousin’s survival.
The suspicious trust payments were protection.
Not conspiracy.
“Then who forged my prescription?” Margaret asked.
Vale looked frightened.
“I don’t know.”
“Who knew Thomas was alive?”
“You. Julian. Me?”
“And?”
Vale hesitated.
“One other.”
Adrian’s voice hardened.
“Who?”
“Your chief financial auditor.”
A woman named Evelyn Shaw.
Fifty-one.
Margaret’s goddaughter.
Raised partly in this house after her parents died.
Practically family.
“She knew?”
“Yes.”
“What did she do?”
“Helped move money quietly.”
Adrian called security.
Evelyn was already inside the estate.
She had arrived thirty minutes earlier.
To see Margaret.
My skin went cold.
We ran upstairs.
Margaret’s bedroom door stood open.
Evelyn sat beside the bed.
A glass of water in her hand.
Margaret had been downstairs.
So who was the water for?
Evelyn looked up.
“Adrian?”
He stopped.
“Put it down.”
She frowned.
“What?”
“The glass.”
Her face changed.
Barely.
But I saw it.
Fear.
She placed it on the table.
I moved toward it.
A white film clung near the rim.
Evelyn stood.
“That isn’t what you think.”
I laughed once.
“People only say that when it’s exactly what we think.”
Adrian’s security blocked the door.
Margaret entered behind us.
“Evelyn?”
The older woman’s expression shattered.
“Aunt Margaret.”
“Did you try to kill me?”
“No.”
“Then why?”
Evelyn began crying.
“I was trying to make you sick.”
Silence.
Somehow that sounded almost worse.
“Why?” Margaret whispered.
“So you would postpone signing the trust amendment.”
“Why?”
“Because once you signed it, Thomas would come back.”
Adrian stared.
“What does Thomas have to do with you?”
Evelyn looked at him.
Everything changed in her face.
“He knows what happened to your father.”
Adrian’s father, Charles Hargrove, had died eight years earlier.
Heart attack.
Natural.
Supposedly.
Margaret stepped closer.
“What happened to Charles?”
Evelyn shook her head.
“I didn’t kill him.”
Nobody had asked that.
Not yet.
Adrian’s face went cold.
“Tell me.”
She closed her eyes.
“Charles discovered the money.”
“What money?”
“Your money.”
“My money?”
She looked directly at him.
“Money being moved through your companies to people you never authorized.”
Same pattern Thomas found.
Same forged approvals.
Adrian whispered:
“Who?”
Evelyn began crying harder.
“Your father tried to stop it.”
“Who?”
Then a gunshot sounded downstairs.
Everyone froze.
Security shouted.
Adrian moved toward the hallway.
I pulled Margaret back.
Evelyn suddenly grabbed my wrist.
“Don’t let him go downstairs.”
“Why?”
Her face was terrified.
“Because the person who killed Charles just came into the house.”
We heard Adrian’s security chief yell one name.
“Mr. Vale!”
Richard?
No.
A second voice answered.
Not Richard Vale.
Thomas.
May you like
Adrian’s supposedly dead brother had finally walked through the front door.
And somebody had fired at him the moment he arrived.
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