Chapter 16 - The Clue Everyone Missed
The necklace changed the investigation.
Not because it contained every answer.
Because it connected separate crimes.
Money.
Medical manipulation.
Marcus.
Charles.
Dr. Kent.
Investigators returned to Kent.
This time they showed him the microfilm.
He broke.
Charles had been poisoned slowly.
Not with some exotic substance.
With medication he had been prescribed after the archive fire.
Marcus persuaded Kent to alter the dose.
Kent claimed he believed Marcus only wanted Charles incapacitated temporarily.
When Charles died, Kent falsified the report.
“Who supplied the altered medication?”
Mason Cole.
The same man who later interfered with Grace’s medical treatment.
The case tightened.
But Marcus disappeared.
His office was empty.
Passport gone.
Private jet booked.
Departure in six hours.
Sophie visited Adrian.
He had been released pending investigation after forensic analysis exposed the planted burner phone.
He looked exhausted.
“You found it.”
She placed photographs of the microfilm before him.
Adrian stared.
“My father.”
“Yes.”
“Marcus killed him.”
“The evidence points there.”
Adrian closed his eyes.
Sophie expected anger.
Instead she saw grief.
Seventeen years late.
“I spent half my life believing he died before he could say goodbye.”
Sophie sat beside him.
“My mother did the same thing to me.”
Adrian looked at her.
“She loved you.”
“I know.”
“So did he.”
Sophie nodded.
For several seconds neither spoke.
Then Adrian noticed one image.
A handwritten code beside a payment.
“M-221.”
“What?”
“Marcus’s jet.”
Sophie frowned.
“That’s the tail number?”
“No.”
Adrian’s expression changed.
“It’s the name of his private holding company.”
They searched the ledger.
M-221 appeared beside dozens of transfers.
One final destination.
A warehouse owned by a supposedly dissolved Blackwood subsidiary.
Victor recognized the address.
“The old records facility.”
They alerted investigators.
Inside the warehouse they found boxes Marcus never expected anyone to locate.
Blackmail files.
Contracts.
Secret recordings.
Photographs.
Payment schedules.
Enough evidence to expose twenty years of corruption.
And one live security feed.
Sophie stared at the monitor.
Marcus Hale stood inside Blackwood Manor.
In the old study.
With Eleanor.
A gun in his hand.
Sophie’s blood went cold.
Adrian whispered:
“He went back for her.”
On the screen Marcus leaned toward Eleanor.
Even without sound, Sophie understood.
He wanted something.
Eleanor shook her head.
Marcus raised the weapon.
Then Eleanor looked directly toward the study’s hidden camera.
May you like
And mouthed two words.
THE CLOCK.
