Chapter 3 - The Man in the Old Footage
Miles arrived at Hawthorne Estate forty minutes later.
He wore a dark suit beneath a raincoat, his silver hair untouched by the storm.
“Nathan.”
Nathan remained in the library doorway.
“You came quickly.”
“Your wife called me saying you assaulted her and police were at the estate. Of course I came quickly.”
“You’re company counsel.”
“I’m also your friend.”
Nathan studied the man he had known since college.
Miles had stood beside him at Eleanor’s funeral.
He had negotiated Nathan’s first major acquisition.
He had represented him during the divorce.
And seven months earlier, Miles had sat across from Nathan in this same library and explained why Olivia was supposedly stealing money from Cole Heritage Group.
Nathan said, “Why did you tell me not to open anything Olivia left?”
Miles’s eyes shifted.
“Rebecca said you found something.”
“She said nothing about Olivia leaving it.”
A pause.
Too small for anyone except Nathan to notice.
“I assumed,” Miles said.
“Did you?”
“Nathan, you are exhausted and furious. This is not the moment to invent conspiracies.”
Grace entered carrying a laptop.
“I restored the March footage.”
Miles looked at her.
Just once.
But Grace saw recognition.
“So did you know about that too?” she asked.
“Know about what?”
Nathan turned the laptop around.
The old nighttime greenhouse recording played.
Olivia entered.
A second figure appeared beside her.
The image was grainy, the face obscured.
Grace paused it.
“That is you.”
Miles laughed.
“You cannot identify anyone from that.”
“I watched you walk across this courtyard for twelve years. Your right leg turns slightly outward because of your old skiing injury.”
Miles stopped laughing.
Nathan noticed the same uneven step now.
“You met Olivia here.”
Miles sighed.
“Yes.”
Rebecca, standing near the library fireplace with a police-issued ice pack against her cheek, looked at him sharply.
Nathan caught the look.
“You told me you hadn’t spoken to Olivia after she left.”
“I was protecting you.”
“From what?”
“From her.”
Nathan’s hands curled.
Miles lowered his voice.
“Olivia contacted me after she left. She said she had documents belonging to the company. I agreed to recover them quietly.”
“At midnight?”
“She refused to meet anywhere else.”
“And you never told me.”
“You were barely functioning after the divorce.”
Nathan stared at him.
“You told me she stole seven hundred forty thousand dollars.”
“That was the conclusion of the internal investigation.”
“An investigation you supervised.”
“Because that was my job.”
Nathan inserted Olivia’s flash drive into an offline laptop.
A password box appeared.
Rebecca said, “This is insane.”
Emma had come quietly to the doorway with Grace’s assistant.
Nathan immediately softened.
“What are you doing down here?”
“I wanted you.”
He crouched.
Emma’s hair was washed now, but a faint streak of mud remained near her ear.
She looked at the laptop.
“Mom used flower names.”
Nathan blinked.
“What?”
“For passwords.”
Rebecca stepped forward.
“Emma, you need to go upstairs.”
Nathan stood between them.
“No.”
Emma stared at the password field.
“Try bluebells.”
Nathan typed BLUEBELLS.
Access denied.
Emma thought.
“Mom said Grandma Eleanor liked white camellias.”
Nathan entered CAMELLIA.
The drive opened.
Miles went still.
Folders appeared.
AR-DEN.
TRUST.
BOARD LOGS.
R.H.
Nathan clicked the first.
Invoices filled the screen.
Arden Restoration Group LLC had billed Cole Heritage Group repeatedly for consulting and preservation work.
Amounts ranging from $180,000 to $620,000.
Total payments over eighteen months: $6.4 million.
Nathan frowned.
“I approved Arden.”
Miles answered too quickly.
“Exactly.”
Nathan opened one invoice.
The address was a mail suite in Manhattan.
Grace said, “What did they restore?”
Nathan searched his memory.
“I was told they were subcontractors on the Harbor House project.”
He clicked another document.
A corporate ownership search Olivia had saved months earlier.
Arden Restoration’s registered organizer was a law firm.
Its beneficial-owner disclosure was not included.
But one attachment caught Nathan’s eye.
A payment from Arden.
$312,000.
Recipient: R.C. Strategies LLC.
Rebecca Cole.
Rebecca’s face emptied.
Nathan looked at her.
“What is R.C. Strategies?”
“An old consulting company.”
“You told me you closed it before we married.”
“I did.”
“Then why did Arden send it three hundred twelve thousand dollars?”
Miles intervened.
“Nathan, stop.”
Nathan turned.
“Why?”
“Because you have no idea whether these records are authentic.”
Emma tugged Nathan’s sleeve.
“Dad.”
He looked down.
She pointed to another folder.
VIDEO NOTES.
Inside was a text file.
March 14 — 11:42 p.m. Miles came alone. Says he can give me the original board secretary log. Says Rebecca does not know he contacted me. I do not believe him. Camera should catch entry.
Nathan slowly looked at Miles.
“You were not there to recover stolen company documents.”
Miles’s voice hardened.
“Olivia was bargaining.”
“For what?”
“Money. Custody. Immunity. Pick one.”
“Where is the board secretary log?”
Miles said nothing.
Nathan looked at Grace.
“Play the next archive.”
Grace opened a second clip from 12:09 A.M.
Miles emerged from the greenhouse alone.
He was carrying a narrow leather portfolio.
Olivia did not come out with him.
Nathan stared.
“What did you take?”
Miles said, “You are making a catastrophic mistake.”
Nathan stepped closer.
“No. I made that mistake months ago when I trusted you.”
Miles’s phone vibrated.
He checked the screen.
His expression changed.
Nathan saw only two words before Miles turned the phone away.
BOARD ALERT.
Then Nathan’s own phone began ringing.
First the chairman.
Then his sister.
Then two independent directors.
Miles looked at him with something almost like pity.
“You should answer.”
Nathan did.
His sister Caroline’s voice came through first.
“Nathan, what the hell happened at Hawthorne?”
“What are you talking about?”
“There’s a video circulating.”
Nathan looked at Rebecca.
She lowered the ice pack.
Caroline continued.
“A video of you hitting Rebecca.”
Nathan’s stomach dropped.
The greenhouse footage had existed for less than two hours.
Someone had already leaked only the eight seconds that made Nathan look like the sole aggressor.
May you like
Miles watched him.
And for the first time Nathan understood that the crisis inside his family had already moved beyond the estate gates.
