Chapter 11 - Conrad’s Bargain
Elena did not close the door.
Instead she stepped backward.
Conrad raised one hand.
“I’m not armed.”
“That isn’t comforting.”
“I came to negotiate.”
“Then why hide behind curtains?”
“Because police are looking for me.”
“That usually happens when you run.”
Conrad looked exhausted.
His perfect lawyer’s mask had cracked.
Victoria appeared behind Elena.
“What are you doing here?”
Conrad laughed.
“Saving what you ruined.”
Victoria’s face hardened.
“You lost Michael.”
“No. You lost control of him.”
Elena looked between them.
“Where is he?”
Conrad held up Michael’s phone.
“Alive.”
“Where?”
“Sign the probate release.”
Victoria snapped, “Stop.”
Conrad turned on her.
“You wanted Elena’s signature from the beginning.”
“Not like this.”
“Please spare me your late morality.”
That sentence mattered.
Victoria had boundaries.
Not good ones.
But perhaps some.
Elena slowly took out her phone.
Conrad saw.
“Do not call police.”
“I’m not.”
She placed it face down on the hall table.
Unknown to Conrad, Elena had activated emergency recording with a side-button shortcut before entering the room.
A mistake from earlier weeks had taught her something:
Evidence survived emotion.
“What exactly am I signing for?” she asked.
Conrad relaxed slightly.
“Your eight-million-dollar settlement. You disclaim rights under Richard’s codicil. You acknowledge Michael voluntarily left the company.”
“And then Michael comes home?”
“Yes.”
Victoria stared at him.
“You cannot promise that.”
Conrad’s face changed.
Elena heard it.
“You don’t know where he is.”
Conrad said nothing.
Victoria stepped forward.
“Conrad.”
“What?”
“You moved him after the lodge.”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
Conrad laughed once.
“You truly don’t know?”
Victoria’s silence answered.
The alliance was cracking.
Elena said, “Michael was your leverage against Victoria too.”
Conrad looked at her with new respect.
“Michael discovered my accounts.”
“What accounts?”
“Richard was not the only Ashford who believed loyalty should be compensated.”
Victoria went still.
Elena understood.
Conrad had hidden money for himself.
Maybe millions.
“Michael found it.”
“Yes.”
“And you kept him alive because you needed to know what evidence he copied.”
Conrad nodded.
“Finally.”
Victoria whispered, “You told me this was about protecting the company.”
“It was twenty years ago.”
“And now?”
“Now it’s about not spending the rest of my life in prison.”
No mythology.
No noble motive.
Fear and greed.
Conrad continued.
“Michael copied my old client ledgers. I need the drive.”
Elena said, “I don’t have it.”
“I know.”
“Then why am I here?”
“Because he will contact you.”
“How?”
“He always finds a way.”
Victoria laughed bitterly.
“You locked him up and still think you understand him.”
Conrad turned.
“At least I understood you.”
Their marriage-like partnership of twenty years was dying in front of Elena.
She used it.
“Victoria, when was the last time you saw Michael?”
“Four nights ago.”
Conrad snapped, “Do not.”
Elena looked at Victoria.
“Where?”
“At the hunting lodge.”
“What happened?”
“He signed.”
“I saw.”
“He refused to tell Conrad where the evidence was.”
Conrad’s jaw tightened.
Victoria continued.
“So Conrad moved him.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know.”
Elena believed her again.
Conrad walked toward Victoria.
“You should stop talking.”
Victoria did not retreat.
“You destroyed everything.”
“I protected you.”
“You protected invoices.”
“You would have been indicted in 2006 without me.”
“And you became rich from it.”
Conrad smiled coldly.
“So did you.”
Elena’s phone silently transmitted the audio to Maya.
At least, she hoped it did.
Then Conrad noticed the small vibration against the wooden table.
His eyes dropped.
He lunged.
Elena grabbed the phone.
Conrad caught her wrist.
Victoria shouted.
A struggle.
Elena pulled away.
The phone hit the floor.
Conrad stomped on it.
The screen cracked.
“You never learned when to stop.”
Elena’s heart hammered.
“Neither did Michael.”
Conrad’s expression changed.
Exactly what she wanted.
“You’re afraid of him.”
“I’m tired of him.”
“Because he has the original ledger?”
“He has enough to destroy every settlement agreement I ever structured.”
“Then killing him would make sense.”
Victoria shouted, “Elena!”
Conrad stared at her.
“I have not killed anyone.”
Important.
Elena believed that too.
“Then where is he?”
Conrad breathed heavily.
“At a place Richard used before the chapel.”
Victoria went pale.
“No.”
Elena turned.
“What place?”
Victoria whispered, “The original family archive.”
“Where?”
“Beneath the old greenhouse.”
Conrad’s face told Elena the answer was true.
Then police sirens sounded outside.
Maya had received the transmission.
Conrad ran.
Not toward the hallway.
Toward Richard’s dressing room.
A hidden panel opened behind a wardrobe.
Elena chased him two steps before remembering Reyes’s warnings.
She stopped.
Police entered.
Victoria did not run.
Conrad vanished into the estate’s service passages.
Reyes arrived breathless.
“You finally listened.”
“I stopped chasing.”
“That qualifies.”
She told him about the greenhouse.
Officers moved immediately.
But the old greenhouse had burned thirty years earlier.
Only its stone foundation remained behind the north garden.
Excavation revealed a concealed staircase.
At the bottom:
an archive room.
Empty.
Again.
Except for one thing.
Michael’s wedding photograph.
Elena and Michael leaving the church six years earlier.
Across Elena’s face someone had written in black ink:
SHE IS WHY YOU LOSE.
Elena stared.
“This isn’t just business anymore.”
Reyes nodded.
“No.”
Then an officer called from the rear chamber.
They had found Michael’s jacket.
Inside the pocket was a hospital admission bracelet.
Not Michael’s.
The printed name:
May you like
SOFIA MARLOWE.
Elena’s dead mother.
