Chapter 4 - The Things I Signed in Darkness
Once I knew Julian had interfered with my treatment, my memory began returning faster.
Not because I forced it.
Because everything suddenly had context.
Documents.
So many documents.
After the accident, Julian began placing papers beneath my hand.
“Just company administration.”
“Just insurance.”
“Just tax restructuring.”
“Sign here, sweetheart.”
I had trusted him.
I owned forty-one percent of Beaumont Holdings, inherited from my father.
Julian owned nothing when we married.
But after my blindness, he gained power of attorney.
Then temporary voting authority.
Then control over several family trusts.
I had signed away pieces of my life without seeing a single page.
Elias’s attorney friend, Maya Chen, investigated quietly.
One evening she arrived at the cabin carrying three folders.
“You’re officially dead enough to be useful.”
I blinked.
“That is a disturbing sentence.”
“Legally, you’re still missing. Your husband filed a petition to have you declared presumed dead.”
“How soon can that happen?”
“Normally, not quickly.”
“But?”
“Your trust has a special clause.”
My father.
Arthur Hayes.
He trusted very few people.
Apparently that included my husband.
If I died, Julian would temporarily control my shares until succession issues were resolved.
Celeste had recently been appointed chief strategy officer.
Maya slid another document toward me.
“They’re planning an emergency shareholder vote.”
“When?”
“Six weeks.”
“For what?”
“To merge Beaumont Holdings with a private company called Northstar Capital.”
“Who owns Northstar?”
Maya looked at me.
“Mostly shell companies.”
Elias leaned forward.
“Meaning?”
Maya’s smile held no humor.
“Meaning I’m betting Julian owns it.”
The plan became obvious.
Kill me.
Inherit temporary control.
Merge the company.
Move assets.
By the time anyone challenged the structure, the money would be gone.
My stomach turned.
“But why wait until now?”
Maya placed a final paper on the table.
“A codicil to your father’s will.”
I stared.
“If you voluntarily transfer more than fifty percent of your voting rights while alive, an independent trustee must approve.”
I understood.
Julian couldn’t simply steal the company while I lived.
He needed me dead.
My memory flashed.
The bridge.
Celeste’s voice.
“Did she sign everything?”
My breathing stopped.
I remembered a pen.
A document in the car.
Julian guiding my hand.
“Last one.”
“What is it?”
“Insurance confirmation.”
It wasn’t.
Maya later discovered it was an amendment designating Julian as sole interim executor of my estate.
I had signed it less than an hour before he pushed me from the bridge.
That night I vomited.
Elias found me sitting on the bathroom floor.
“I loved him.”
“I know.”
“I defended him.”
“I know.”
“I let him control everything.”
Elias crouched several feet away.
“You were blind.”
“I was stupid.”
“No.”
I looked at him.
“He made sure you couldn’t see documents. Then he used your trust in him.”
The words hit harder than anger.
“He didn’t just try to kill me.”
“No.”
“He built the murder for months.”
Elias nodded.
I wiped my face.
Then another memory returned.
A camera.
My father’s old habit.
After a break-in years earlier, he had installed encrypted recording systems in every family vehicle.
Julian hated them.
I had forgotten they existed.
“My car.”
Maya looked up.
“What?”
“The car I crashed.”
Elias understood first.
“You think it recorded the crash?”
I stared at Maya.
“Find it.”
Three days later she called.
The vehicle had been declared destroyed.
But its onboard data module had been removed before disposal.
Someone had signed for it.
The signature belonged to Celeste Morgan.
Now we knew the first accident had never been an accident.
But proving it would require getting that module back.
May you like
And for the first time since waking in the river, I stopped thinking only about survival.
I started thinking about returning.
:max_bytes(150000):strip_icc():focal(1048x378:1050x380)/Jenna-Bush-Hager-100223-c94955eb572d47ea815a340c18c6e771.jpg)
