Chapter 18 - Rebecca's Final Months
Claire turned slowly.
“What did you say?”
Eleanor opened her eyes.
“Rebecca was sick.”
“But the cancer didn’t kill her.”
Claire felt the floor disappear beneath her.
Her mother had died in hospice eight months earlier.
Claire had been there.
She had held Rebecca’s hand.
Eleanor explained that Rebecca’s cancer had initially responded to treatment.
Then Rebecca began receiving anonymous threats.
Someone wanted Richard’s evidence.
Rebecca refused.
One month later, her medication was contaminated.
Claire’s face went numb.
“Who?”
“I don’t know.”
Claire stepped closer.
“You expect me to believe that?”
“For once, yes.”
Hale launched an investigation immediately.
Rebecca’s medical records were reviewed.
A toxicology sample had been preserved.
It revealed an unusual concentration of a drug not prescribed to her.
Someone had accelerated her decline.
Claire spent the next day unable to speak about anything else.
Ethan stayed with her.
He did not tell her how to feel.
He simply stayed.
Security footage from Rebecca’s hospice still existed.
Hale reviewed weeks of recordings.
One visitor appeared repeatedly.
A volunteer chaplain named Michael Grant.
There was no Michael Grant registered with the facility.
Facial recognition identified him as Michael Vale.
Charles Vale’s illegitimate son.
Eleanor’s half-brother.
Claire had never heard of him.
Neither had Ethan.
Michael had spent most of his life outside the family.
Records showed Charles secretly supported him financially.
After Charles died, those payments stopped.
Michael apparently believed Rebecca possessed evidence worth millions.
Police located his apartment.
It was empty.
But inside were photographs of Claire.
Ethan.
Anna.
Rosa.
Sophie.
And Eleanor.
Michael had been following all of them.
Then Hale found something worse.
A floor plan of Carrington Global headquarters.
Claire’s formal inheritance hearing was scheduled there the following morning.
Michael knew.
Samuel Price wanted to cancel.
Claire refused.
“If I keep running, this never ends.”
Security was tripled.
The hearing began at nine.
Claire signed the final documents confirming her identity as David Carrington’s daughter.
At 9:17, she officially became controlling beneficiary of the Carrington trust.
For the first time, Eleanor no longer had any claim to the company.
Everyone thought the danger had passed.
Then the fire alarm sounded.
Employees began evacuating.
Ethan looked toward the security monitors.
One camera showed a man entering the restricted archive level.
Michael Vale.
He was not running toward Claire.
May you like
He was going after the original Carrington records.
And those records contained the names of every person who had helped Charles Vale steal children.
