Chapter 2 - THE DOCUMENTS FROM MY FATHER'S ESTATE
I had buried my father on a wet November morning and spent the next six years believing his estate was settled.
Apparently Camden had not.
The sealed cargo appeared in flight logs under the code:
AM-4.
Alden Meridian.
My father’s company.
My father’s initials.
I looked at Camden.
“What was on those flights?”
He folded his arms.
“I don’t know.”
“You approved them.”
“I approve hundreds of movements.”
“Then this should be easy.”
I handed him the manifest.
“Explain one.”
He did not take it.
Lila looked increasingly uncomfortable.
“This really has nothing to do with me.”
I turned toward her.
“You boarded a company aircraft under a false passenger designation.”
“Camden invited me.”
“Yes.”
“I didn’t know—”
“I believe you.”
She blinked.
Camden looked at me sharply.
I continued.
“That does not make you innocent of humiliating me in front of my employees. But it may make you irrelevant to the financial fraud.”
That hurt her more than yelling would have.
Good.
Then Nora told me Zurich had replied.
The Swiss leasing entity that received fourteen million dollars did not own aircraft.
It owned one thing.
A safe-deposit vault.
Registered to:
C.P. Holdings.
Camden Pierce.
My husband.
I looked at him.
“Still nothing?”
His jaw tightened.
“Vivian, you don’t understand how international leasing structures work.”
I almost smiled.
“My graduate degree is in aviation finance.”
Someone behind Camden coughed.
He glared.
Then I said:
“Try again.”
He did not.
So I turned to security.
“Preserve Camden’s access logs. Suspend executive aviation privileges. No deletion, no remote entry, no aircraft authorization.”
Camden laughed.
“You can’t suspend me.”
Nora answered before I could.
“She already did.”
That was why I had been waiting in the hangar.
Not for an apology.
For Zurich.
For confirmation.
For enough evidence that suspension would not look like an angry wife punishing a cheating husband.
I had learned early that powerful men loved describing women as emotional when documents became inconvenient.
So I brought documents.
Camden stepped toward me.
“What exactly do you think happens now?”
“I go home.”
His face relaxed slightly.
“Good.”
“To my apartment.”
His expression changed again.
“What apartment?”
“The one I leased four weeks ago.”
Lila stared.
Camden whispered:
“You planned this.”
“I prepared for possibilities.”
Then Nora handed me one final item.
A copy of the estate-transfer request.
It asked a Swiss custodian to release documents belonging to the Alden Meridian Founder’s Trust.
Signer:
Camden Pierce.
Authority claimed:
Spousal Power of Attorney.
I looked at the signature.
Mine.
Forged.
But that was not what frightened me most.
The request listed the documents Camden wanted.
One was called:
Contingent Succession Memorandum - Vivian Alden.
I had never heard of it.
Neither had Nora.
My father’s attorneys had never mentioned it.
May you like
Camden had been searching for a document about what happened to the company after me.
And suddenly the affair looked very small.
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