Chapter 26 - The Ledger of Deceit
"What do you mean, Richard made a move?" Detective Ruiz demanded, his hand resting near his radio. "Richard is in county custody under twenty-four-hour surveillance for the poisoning attempt and fraud."
Lucas pulled the manila envelope from Evelyn’s desk and spilled its contents onto the blotter. Several glossy photographs and photocopied bank slips scattered across the wood.
"Two days ago, someone posted bail for Richard under an LLC shell company based out of Delaware," Lucas said grimly. "The county records were altered by someone high up in the clerk's office. Richard isn't in a cell. He walked out six hours ago."
"What?!" Julian's voice cracked like a whip. He immediately pulled his phone, dialing his family’s private legal counsel. "How could an attempted murder suspect be released without Ruiz being notified?"
"Because the system is rotting from the inside," Lucas stated bluntly. "Look at the transfer slips. Bernice was never working alone. The checks that funded Richard's failed real estate investments didn't come from Bernice’s personal accounts. They came from a trust fund managed by a man named Sterling Vance—the senior vice president of Vanguard Bio-Pharm."
I picked up one of the photographs. It showed Richard, looking gaunt and frantic, getting into the back of a black Mercedes outside the detention center. Beside him stood a man in an immaculate charcoal overcoat, his silver hair neatly styled.
"Sterling Vance," Julian murmured, staring over my shoulder at the photograph. The color suddenly drained from Julian’s face.
I looked up at my fiancé. "Julian? Do you know him?"
Julian swallowed hard, his eyes wide with disbelief and growing horror. "Sterling Vance sits on the board of trustees at my family's hospital foundation. He was at our engagement dinner, Elaine. He shook your hand. He toasted to our future."
The room plunged into an icy chill. Every pillar of reality I had leaned on for the last decade seemed to fracture beneath my weight.
"He wasn't toasting to your wedding," Lucas said quietly. "He was calculating how much easier it would be to seize the Hastings patents once Elaine was legally bound to an unsuspecting husband whose family already had deep ties to the pharmaceutical industry. Bernice burning that dress wasn't just a fit of bitter madness, Elaine. It was the spark that signaled the operation was falling apart."
"Why burn the dress, then?" I asked, remembering the sickening smell of singed raw silk that had filled my mother's hearth. "If she wanted me married off, why destroy it?"
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"Because she found out Arthur left you that tape," Lucas revealed. "The dress was a warning. She wanted to terrify you into silence before you found the key hidden in Arthur’s belongings. But when Julian stood by you instead of letting you be disgraced, Bernice panicked and sent Richard to finish it."
Suddenly, the halogen lights above us flickered. A violent surge passed through the building’s wiring, and with a sharp pop, the entire office plunged into pitch black darkness.
