Chapter 17 - Gabriel’s Last Bargain
Gabriel sat in Margaret’s living room connected to a portable oxygen tank.
Julian stood near the fireplace.
Margaret looked ten years older than she had that morning.
Andrew entered with Renee and Rachel.
Gabriel raised a hand.
“I’m sorry about Sophie.”
Renee ignored that.
“Did you plant the microphone?”
“No.”
“Did you break into our house?”
“No.”
“Did you demand ten million from Julian?”
“No.”
Julian played the distorted call.
Gabriel listened.
“That’s my breathing.”
“So?”
“Someone used recordings of me.”
Andrew frowned.
“Who has recordings?”
“Charles recorded everyone.”
Thomas arrived minutes later.
When he heard the call, he swore.
“Elias.”
Renee looked up.
“Mercer?”
Thomas nodded.
“Elias has copies of Gabriel’s old confession.”
Julian stared.
“Why would Mercer blackmail me?”
“Because you destroyed his life.”
Julian accepted that silently.
Gabriel looked toward Renee.
“There’s more.”
“There always is.”
“I met Elias because Charles ordered me to threaten him. Years later, I tried to help him recover money.”
“How much?”
“Three million.”
Julian laughed bitterly.
“From me?”
“From Northline.”
“So Mercer wants ten now.”
“Possibly.”
Rachel interrupted.
“Possibility is not evidence.”
Gabriel nodded.
“That’s why I came.”
He removed a sealed envelope.
Inside were bank records showing payments from a shell corporation to Mercer’s inspection company during the last six months.
Total: $480,000.
Payer:
MB Holdings.
Andrew looked at Margaret.
She shook her head.
“Not mine.”
Julian frowned.
“MB could be anything.”
Rachel examined the registration.
The company was organized in Delaware.
Registered agent confidential.
Gabriel said, “Charles used MB as shorthand for ‘Mother Bennett.’”
Margaret stiffened.
“My mother?”
Andrew’s grandmother, Eleanor Bennett.
Founder of Halcyon.
Dead for fifteen years.
“That makes no sense,” Andrew said.
Gabriel looked at Margaret.
“Unless Eleanor knew.”
Margaret went pale.
“My mother spent her last years with dementia.”
“Before that.”
Margaret sat.
A hidden history inside a hidden history.
Rachel asked, “Why are these payments recent?”
Gabriel’s answer was simple.
“Someone revived one of Eleanor’s shell companies.”
“Who had access?”
“Family trustees.”
Margaret.
Charles before death.
Julian.
Andrew, theoretically.
And the trust attorney.
Rachel asked for the attorney’s name.
Margaret answered.
“Samuel Voss.”
Andrew knew him.
Voss had handled Bennett family estates for thirty years.
He had drafted Charles’s will.
Managed Halcyon.
Structured Margaret’s secret trust.
And supervised the trust that sold Hawthorne Ridge to Andrew.
Rachel’s expression hardened.
“He connects everything.”
Gabriel nodded.
“I believe Sam has been cleaning up after the Bennetts for decades.”
Margaret whispered, “Sam was my father’s lawyer before he was ours.”
Thomas said, “He knew every account.”
Julian added, “And every weakness.”
Andrew felt the architecture of the conspiracy shift.
They had been looking at family members because family members were visible.
But someone had built the legal machinery underneath them.
Gabriel coughed violently.
When he recovered, he looked at Renee.
“Peter discovered Voss’s role days before he died.”
Renee stared.
“Was Voss there that night?”
Gabriel hesitated.
“Yes.”
The room froze.
“You said you followed my father alone.”
“I lied.”
Renee stepped toward him.
Gabriel continued quickly.
“Voss was in Charles’s car with me.”
“Did he reach the crash?”
“Yes.”
“What did he do?”
Gabriel’s eyes filled.
“He told me not to call an ambulance.”
Renee’s face became blank.
“Why?”
“Because Peter was conscious.”
Gabriel’s voice shook.
“And Peter said he had already sent the evidence to a federal prosecutor.”
Everyone stared.
Andrew asked, “Did he?”
Gabriel shook his head.
“We never found any shipment.”
Rachel looked toward the locked evidence case.
“Maybe because he didn’t send paper.”
Renee understood first.
“The seventh tape.”
Rachel nodded.
“No. The tape is personal.”
May you like
She looked at the numbers Sophie had carried in the rabbit.
“What if the song opened more than one compartment?”
