He closed his eyes.
Mara tapped the map.
“Arthur discovered the pattern after an old client lost her home under a suspicious guardianship.”
I recognized the name.
Margaret Ellis.
My first mentor.
She had died two years earlier.
I gripped the table.
“Arthur did this for Margaret?”
“For her,” Mara said, “and for you.”
Then she played the second video.
Arthur stood in our garage.
Judge Mercer was beside him.
But the conversation was not what any of us expected.
Mercer was frightened.
“Arthur, you need to stop.”
“I won’t.”
“You don’t understand Martin.”
“I understand thieves.”
“You understand paper.
Martin understands people.”
Arthur stepped closer.
“You signed the orders.”
Mercer looked away.
“My daughter owed money.”
Arthur’s face softened slightly.
“How much?”
“Enough.”
“So he bought you.”
“He owned me.”
Arthur shook his head.
“No one owns you unless you stay silent.”
Then a car entered the driveway.
Arthur looked toward it.
The video glitched.
When it returned, Arthur was on the ground.
A figure bent over him.
Not Mercer.
Not Hale.
A woman.
She removed Arthur’s medication pouch and replaced something inside.
Then she looked directly toward the camera.
My blood froze.
Daniel whispered, “No.”
The woman was Vanessa.
Daniel stumbled backward.
Mara paused the footage.
I could not breathe.
“She killed him.”
Mara shook her head.
“Not necessarily.”
“What do you mean?”
“The autopsy was never fully investigated.
We exhumed Arthur yesterday.”
I gripped the table.
“You what?”
“I’m sorry.”
My anger came fast.
“You had no right—”
“Eleanor.”
Mara placed a report in front of me.
“We found traces of a sedative that was not prescribed to him.”
Daniel sat down hard.
Vanessa had entered our home.
Touched Arthur’s medication.
And he died hours later.
I wanted to hate her.
It would have been simpler.
Then Mara said, “But the dosage wasn’t fatal.”
