Chapter 11 - Nineteen Missing Minutes
Celeste’s second visit to Victor’s suite transformed the investigation.
“He said he was done protecting me,” she told Detective Holt.
Laura sat beside Pierce but felt miles away.
“What did you do?” Holt asked.
“I begged him.”
“For what?”
“Time.”
“To hide the fraud?”
“To repay it.”
“With what?”
“The AlderWest deal.”
Laura closed her eyes.
Celeste’s solution to theft had been another compromised transaction.
Victor refused.
“He said Caleb would inherit the control because Laura would never sell land just to save her pride.”
Laura almost laughed bitterly.
Victor had overestimated her.
Years earlier she might have done exactly that.
Celeste continued:
“I told him Caleb was a child and I deserved the resort.”
“What did Victor say?”
Celeste began crying.
“He said, ‘That sentence is why you cannot have it.’”
Silence.
Laura felt the cruelty and wisdom simultaneously.
“Then?”
“I left.”
“Was he alive?”
“Yes.”
“Alert?”
“Yes.”
“What time?”
“About seven twenty.”
Ten minutes later Celeste found him collapsed.
“Why go back again?”
“I forgot my phone.”
Holt looked skeptical.
Celeste nodded miserably.
“I know.”
“Did you touch his medication?”
“No.”
“Did you see Grant?”
“No.”
Laura asked:
“Did Dad drink the coffee?”
Celeste looked at her.
“Yes.”
The cup had never been preserved.
No one suspected poisoning.
Grant’s attorney issued a statement calling speculation defamatory.
Then forensic toxicology returned.
Victor’s preserved tissue contained a beta blocker consistent with the medication he had discontinued.
Not automatically lethal.
But the concentration was higher than expected.
Dr. Mercer reviewed it.
“In someone with Victor’s cardiac condition, that could contribute to severe bradycardia.”
“Could it cause death?” Laura asked.
“It could contribute.”
Again that careful legal language.
The medical examiner amended the death certificate from natural to undetermined pending investigation.
Laura felt no satisfaction.
If Victor had been harmed, her family’s betrayal was deeper than money.
Detectives executed warrants on Grant’s properties.
His Denver condo was empty.
The Cayman house inaccessible without international process.
But his resort office contained a hidden drawer.
Inside was a second phone.
Messages with Voss.
One dated the morning Victor died:
G: He’s going to police.
V: Then stop the disclosure.
G: How?
V: You’ve solved harder problems.
No explicit murder.
But chilling.
Another message, thirty-five minutes later:
G: Problem delayed.
Then Voss:
V: Enough?
Grant:
G: For now.
Laura stared.
“What does ‘problem delayed’ mean?”
Holt answered, “We’ll ask him.”
Grant had vanished.
A warrant issued for financial crimes and obstruction.
His passport was flagged.
But his private charter reservation had been canceled.
Nobody knew where he was.
Then Caleb remembered something.
“Grandpa had another phone.”
Laura frowned.
“What?”
“A tiny black one.”
“When did you see it?”
“The last time we were here.”
“Where?”
“He put it inside my sled.”
Laura’s pulse jumped.
The compartment had held a memory card, key, and photograph when they opened it.
No phone.
“Did you see him take it back?”
Caleb shook his head.
“He said, ‘This is too heavy.’ Then he went to the garage.”
Laura called Evan.
Victor had an old workshop beside the garage.
They searched.
Behind a wall panel they found a small black phone.
Battery dead.
Digital forensics recovered deleted messages.
One was from Grant to Victor.
Sent at 7:23 the morning he died.
We need to talk before you call Holt. I’m outside.
Grant had been near Victor’s suite.
His finance-office alibi was false.
Another message from Victor, unsent draft:
Laura — if Grant says Celeste killed me, do not believe him without proof. He is preparing to sacrifice her.
Laura stared.
Victor had anticipated Grant’s strategy.
And possibly his own danger.
Below it was one more unfinished line:
The medication came from—
The draft ended.
No name.
No answer.
Then Detective Holt received a call.
Grant’s vehicle had been found abandoned at a trailhead twelve miles from Snowhaven Ridge.
Inside was a bloodstained glove.
May you like
And a map marked with one destination.
Victor’s hidden shed.
