June Alvarez had a daughter named Elena.
She was twenty-four and worked as a physical therapist.
I had met her once at Northstar's summer picnic.
She was quiet, with her mother's dark eyes.
When Detective Ortiz told me about the message June had left, I pictured Elena listening to her mother's voice for the last time.
It made my chest ache.
“What did June discover?” I asked.
Ortiz sat beside my hospital bed.
“We're still tracing the transactions.”
She explained that June had noticed reimbursement entries tied to vendors that weren't performing work for Northstar.
At first, the charges looked small.
Equipment rentals.
Maintenance supplies.
Consulting fees.
Then June followed the payments.
Several vendors led to a holding company associated with Brooke's brother.
From there, money moved into accounts connected to a planned acquisition.
“What acquisition?”
“Two private helicopter maintenance facilities.”
I frowned.
“Northstar was considering maintenance expansion.”
“Grant appears to have been pursuing it without your approval.”
I remembered arguing with him about capital expenditures.
He wanted to acquire two struggling facilities.
I believed their debt and maintenance liabilities made them poor investments.
He insisted we would lose opportunities if we moved too slowly.
I refused.
The proposal disappeared from board discussions.
Apparently, Grant had never abandoned it.
“How much money?” I asked.
“Enough to give investigators serious questions about diversion of company funds. We aren't treating every transfer as criminal until we establish its purpose and authority.”
“Did June know?”
“She appears to have found part of it.”
Ortiz opened her notebook.
“June told Elena she was meeting Grant at the cabin because he'd offered to explain the expenses and return missing documentation.”
My stomach tightened.
“Why would she go alone?”
“She apparently believed she was attending a routine financial discussion.”
I looked toward the window.
June was a careful woman.
She trusted processes.
She trusted written records.
And she had trusted the company's CFO.
Ortiz continued.
“Her car was found yesterday in a storage building rented through one of those vendors.”
I turned toward her.
“Who moved it?”
“We're working on that.”
She didn't tell me more.
But her tone made clear that the investigation was moving quickly.
“Are you looking for Brooke?”
“Yes.”
I closed my eyes.
Brooke had stood beside Grant outside the cabin.
She'd known about the fire.
She'd asked whether I would wake.
And she'd climbed into the SUV.
I couldn't stop hearing her voice.
You promised she wouldn't suffer.
Ortiz's phone vibrated.
She checked the screen, then stood.
“I need to step outside.”
“Has something happened?”
“We have a lead on the vehicle used after the fire.”
She left.
Samuel remained with me.
For several minutes, we said nothing.
Then he spoke.
“Your mother once told me that the worst thing about betrayal was how it borrowed your own trust.”
I looked at him.
“When?”
“Long before you were born.”
“What was she talking about?”
“Her father.”
I frowned.
My grandfather, Charles Hartwell, had died when I was fourteen.
He'd been a major investor in regional aviation.
He was also a difficult man.
My mother rarely discussed him.
Samuel leaned back.
“Charles wanted Evelyn to marry someone from his business circle. He thought she should stop flying.”
“Richard?”
“No. Richard came later. Charles wanted her to marry a man named Andrew Calloway.”
I'd heard the name once or twice.
An investor.
Older than my mother.
“She refused,” Samuel said.
“Good.”
Samuel smiled faintly.
“She refused very loudly.”
Then his expression sobered.
“When she became pregnant, Charles threatened to cut off her financing. He also said he'd use everything he could to keep me away from the child.”
“Why?”
“He thought I was unsuitable.”
“Because you worked rescue missions?”
“Because I didn't have money or family connections.”
I stared at him.
“So Mother told you the baby died?”
“I believe Charles pressured her. But I don't know exactly what she was told or threatened with.”
“Did she ever explain?”
“No.”
I felt anger rise.
Not only at Charles.
At Evelyn.
At Samuel.
At all the adults who had made decisions about my existence.
“You could have come back.”
“I did.”
“You could have kept trying.”
“I should have.”
He didn't defend himself.
That made it harder to stay angry.
“Richard loved me,” I said.
“I know.”
“He didn't deserve to be treated like a substitute.”
“I'm not asking you to treat him that way.”
I looked away.
“I don't know what you want.”
Samuel thought for a moment.
“I'd like to know whether you take sugar in your coffee.”
I turned back.
He gave a small shrug.
“And what kind of music you listen to. Whether you liked flying as a child. Things fathers usually get to learn slowly.”
I swallowed.
“I don't drink coffee.”
“All right.”
“I hate flying commercially.”
He laughed softly.
“Your mother would have enjoyed that.”
For a moment, I smiled.
Then the door opened.
Helen Mercer entered carrying a leather briefcase.
She looked tired.
Her hair had come loose from its usual neat arrangement.
She set the briefcase on the table.
“I have good news about the company.”
I straightened.
“Tell me.”
“Arthur and the independent directors have suspended Grant from financial authority pending investigation. They also froze approval of extraordinary transactions.”
“And the proxy?”
“Formally challenged. Nobody can rely on it while the authenticity dispute is being resolved.”
“Can Brooke access the systems?”
“Her access has been suspended.”
I closed my eyes.
“Thank you.”
Helen sat.
“Don't thank me yet. We need to deal with what they attempted.”
She opened her briefcase.
Inside were copies of the disputed documents.
The scanned proxy displayed my name.
My supposed signature looked convincing at first glance.
But the shape of the final letter was wrong.
I always finished my surname with a tight upward stroke.
This signature curved downward.
“That's not mine,” I said.
“I know.”
She showed me another page.
A proposed amendment to my estate plan.
It would have appointed Grant to manage certain assets and exercise broad discretion over their disposition.
Again, my signature appeared.
Again, it wasn't mine.
“Who prepared these?”
“An attorney Grant consulted without informing Northstar's regular counsel. The attorney says he received instructions and signed scans from Grant's office but never witnessed you execute them.”
I stared at the pages.
My husband had forged a future without me in it.
Helen continued.
“Your mother's existing trust is still in force. Even if you'd died, Grant couldn't simply inherit sixty-eight percent of Northstar. The transfer restrictions and trust provisions matter.”
“So he didn't understand the company?”
“He understood enough to cause damage. He appears to have believed the board would accept his documents before anyone challenged them.”
I looked at the false signature again.
“Then he planned to use the insurance money.”
“That seems to have been his intended next move. But payment required a verified covered death and other conditions.”
“Thirty million dollars.”
Helen nodded.
“A great deal of money to someone who'd lost access to easier financing.”
“Brooke?”
Helen hesitated.
“We don't yet know how far she was involved financially.”
I remembered Brooke wearing my necklace.
I remembered her hand on Grant's arm.
“She knew about the fire.”
Helen's expression was grave.
“Then she'll have to answer for that.”
Later that afternoon, Detective Ortiz returned.
She had news.
Brooke's SUV had been found at a motel outside the county.
Grant had been stopped while driving toward the state line.
Both were being questioned.
I sat very still.
“Are they under arrest?”
“Grant has been arrested on charges connected to the arson and attempted killing. Additional charges may follow as the evidence develops.”
“And Brooke?”
“She has retained counsel. Her legal position is still being assessed.”
“What about June?”
Ortiz's expression softened.
“Her death is central to the investigation.”
I felt no relief.
Not the relief I'd imagined.
Grant was in custody.
But June was still dead.
My son had nearly died.
And my marriage had ended inside a burning building.
Ortiz continued.
“We recovered additional evidence from the motel room. Among other things, there were financial records and notes about the insurance policy.”
“Notes?”
“Yes.”
She hesitated.
“Grant also had copies of the funeral program and the emergency board agenda.”
I stared at her.
“He took them with him?”
“He apparently intended to continue managing the corporate situation through lawyers.”
The absurdity of it struck me.
He had tried to murder me.
He had prepared a memorial service.
And even while fleeing, he worried about paperwork.
Ortiz placed her notebook on her lap.
“There is something else you should know.”
I waited.
“Brooke has indicated, through her attorney, that she may provide information about the planning.”
“Why?”
“We can't know her motives yet.”
“Does she admit knowing?”
“Her lawyer has acknowledged she was aware of a plan involving the cabin. The exact extent of her participation remains under investigation.”
I looked at Samuel.
His face was unreadable.
“Can she identify who killed June?”
“That's one of the questions investigators are pursuing.”
I wanted to ask a hundred things.
Instead, I asked one.
“Will I have to see Grant again?”
Ortiz answered carefully.
“Possibly in legal proceedings. There are ways to minimize unnecessary contact.”
I nodded.
A nurse entered to check my blood pressure.
It was elevated.
My obstetrician came shortly afterward.
She reviewed Noah's monitoring results and ordered additional rest.
I apologized for not being a cooperative patient.
She gave me a tired smile.
“Your job is to keep breathing and let us help you.”
I lay back.
For the first time in days, there was no urgent call to make.
No livestream to watch.
No board meeting to stop.
The silence should have comforted me.
Instead, it left room for grief.
I cried for June.
For my mother.
For the man I had married.
Not because I wanted him back.
Because I could remember loving him.
And that memory now frightened me.
Samuel sat beside the bed until evening.
When I finally stopped crying, he handed me a glass of water.
“Can I ask you something?” I said.
“Anything.”
“Did Mother ever tell you why she kept my existence from you?”
He shook his head.
“Not directly.”
“Then how will we ever know?”
Samuel considered that.
“She kept letters. Journals. Boxes of old flight records. Evelyn saved everything.”
I smiled despite myself.
“She did.”
“Perhaps there's something she left behind.”
I looked toward the window.
The cabin was gone.
But Mother's office at Northstar still existed.
So did her files.
Her journals.
Her locked cabinets.
And the blue storage box she had asked me never to throw away.
I turned toward Helen.
“There's something in my mother's office we need to find.”
Helen looked up.
“What?”
“A box marked PERSONAL FLIGHT RECORDS.”
Samuel straightened.
I remembered Evelyn placing it in the cabinet years before she died.
She'd looked at me strangely.
“Someday,” she said, “you might need to understand why I made some of my choices.”
At the time, I'd assumed she meant business decisions.
Now I wasn't so sure.
END PART 4
