Chapter 6: Elaine’s Voice
Dad stared at the blue sentence.
“That isn’t Elaine’s handwriting.”
George straightened his cuffs.
“Prove it.”
Thomas carried the cassette to the boardroom’s media console.
The machine clicked, hissed, and then Beverly’s younger voice filled the room.
“Say it again, George.”
George’s recorded voice answered, thick and impatient.
“I touched Elaine’s car.
I only meant to frighten her.”
Beverly’s voice shook.
“You left her there.”
“She had the ledger.
If that ledger reached Robert, everything was over.”
The tape clicked off.
George’s attorney stood.
“An undated recording without verified custody proves nothing.”
Mrs.
Lawson placed a bank log beside the cassette.
“The box was sealed twenty-six years ago.
Every visit was witnessed.”
George pointed at Beverly.
“She manufactured it.”
“You admitted it in your own voice,” Fiona said.
“I was drunk.
Your mother manipulated me.”
Beverly flinched, but Dad moved between them.
“You blamed every woman who saw you clearly,” he said.
“Elaine was unstable.
Beverly was confused.
Fiona was spoiled.
Was anyone ever responsible except you?”
George slapped his palm against the table.
“You signed the police statement!”
“I signed nothing.”
Thomas opened Elaine’s notebook.
“The ledger numbers match transfers from the old Henderson account into three Whitmore holding companies.”
George’s attorney whispered in his ear.
“No,” George snapped.
“We leave together.”
“I’m not leaving,” the attorney said.
“My firm was never informed of concealed evidence.”
He placed George’s folder on the table and walked out.
The chair scraped loudly.
No one called him back.
I unfolded the letter again.
“The blue ink is newer than the rest.”
Fiona touched the torn edge.
“Dad keeps blue fountain pens in his private safe.
He used one last night.”
George looked at her as if she were a stranger.
“You would turn against your own father?”
“You turned me into someone who laughed at a good man,” she replied.
“I’m trying to stop becoming you.”
She opened her handbag and removed a flash drive.
“I copied Dad’s private files before the wedding.
I thought they concerned the Henderson partnership.”
George rushed toward her.
Security blocked him.
“What is on it?” I asked.
“Emails to the retired officer who handled Elaine’s case,” Fiona said.
“Payments every year on the anniversary of her funeral.”
Thomas connected the drive.
The screen filled with invoices marked CONSULTING.
Dad gripped the back of a chair.
“Officer Warren.”
Beverly nodded.
“George paid him to replace your signature page.”
The boardroom door opened.
An elderly man entered with a cane, escorted by two investigators.
George backed into the table.
Officer Warren set a worn file on the polished wood.
“I kept the original statement,” he said.
“After taking his money for years?” I asked.
Warren lowered his head.
“I told myself I was protecting my pension.
Then I watched the wedding video this morning and saw Robert being called trash.”
Dad’s voice was cold.
“A cruel word troubled you more than Elaine’s final hour?”
“No,” Warren said.
“It showed me George still believed no one beneath him mattered.”
He opened the file.
Dad’s name appeared on the statement, but the signature did not resemble his.
One investigator looked at George.
“We need you to come with us.”
George laughed.
“On the word of a corrupt former officer and a frightened wife?”
“Not only them,” Warren replied.
He removed a small evidence bag containing a piece of dark automotive trim.
“This was recovered from Elaine’s car.
I hid it instead of submitting it.”
Thomas turned it over.
A faded serial number remained visible.
May you like
Warren pointed toward George.
“That number belongs to the car he claimed was never on the river road.”
