Chapter 8 - COLIN’S PRICE FOR LOYALTY
Colin Reed had worked for my family seventeen years.
He protected my father.
Escorted my mother.
Handled my travel.
Carried Alex when he fell asleep at charity events.
He knew every alarm code in my life.
And six years earlier, he forged my signature.
His payment records explained why.
Victoria had quietly transferred $400,000 into a retirement account for him through family-office bonuses.
Not once.
Over time.
Small enough to look legitimate.
Loyalty compensation.
I called Colin from the conference room with counsel present.
He answered.
“I figured you’d find the video.”
“So you knew Emma recorded it?”
“She told me.”
“When?”
“The morning she died.”
My entire body went cold.
“Explain.”
After the fall, Emma was conscious intermittently.
Colin arrived.
She saw him take her phone.
“She told me Andrew will find the original.”
“You heard that?”
“Yes.”
“And instead of helping her, you searched?”
“I called the ambulance.”
“After deleting footage.”
Silence.
“Did you forge my signature six years ago?”
“Yes.”
No denial now.
“Why?”
“Your mother told me your father’s trust would split company control at the worst possible time.”
“So you committed fraud.”
“I told myself it was temporary.”
Everyone in my family loved that word.
Temporary.
Temporary lies.
Temporary stolen money.
Temporary control.
Six years later, it was still there.
“Were you on the stairs before Emma fell?”
“No.”
The raw elevator log supported that.
He arrived minutes later.
“Did you alter the scene?”
“Yes.”
“What?”
“I removed the blue folder.”
“You wiped the hallway camera.”
“Yes.”
“Took her phone.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Victoria said if Nicholas’s financial mess became public that morning, lenders could pull lines across the whole company.”
“So you protected the company.”
“I protected thousands of employees.”
I laughed without humor.
“That is how cowards make themselves sound noble.”
He was quiet.
Then:
“You think I don't know that now?”
I did not care.
“What happened to the blue folder?”
“Victoria took it.”
“Emma said it was a copy.”
“I learned that later.”
“Where is her phone?”
“Destroyed.”
“You destroyed it?”
“Nicholas did.”
My eyes hardened.
“So Nick was still there.”
“Yes.”
“After telling everyone he left before the fall?”
“Yes.”
Another lie.
Colin continued.
“He panicked more than your mother.”
“Why?”
“Because Emma told him she found Ravenwood.”
Forty-six million.
“Did Nick mean to make her fall?”
Colin exhaled.
“I wasn't there.”
Fair.
Then he added:
“But afterward, he said something I never forgot.”
“What?”
“He said, ‘She should’ve just given me the file.’”
No shock.
No horror.
Possession.
Then Colin said:
“There’s another reason your merger collapsed.”
My attention sharpened.
“The whistleblower report.”
“What whistleblower?”
The Chicago target had received an anonymous disclosure hours before my meeting.
Claims about hidden trust liabilities and falsified cap-table history.
That was why their board abruptly paused.
I assumed a competitor had leaked something.
No.
The disclosure came from a scheduled dead-man's-switch email.
Set up months earlier.
By Emma.
If she failed to enter a weekly passcode, the evidence would go to outside counsel and any active major transaction partner.
For four months after her death, someone had kept entering the passcode.
Then suddenly stopped.
“Who?” I asked.
Colin whispered:
“Elizabeth Brown.”
I turned toward her.
May you like
She had kept Emma’s safeguard alive.
And she had deliberately allowed it to trigger while I was in Chicago.
