Chapter 3 - HIS MOTHER'S CONFESSION
Elena Mitchell had never cried in front of me.
Not when my marriage nearly collapsed.
Not when Jason humiliated me at family gatherings.
Not even when she learned that her son had emptied our accounts.
But now tears ran silently down her face.
She looked older than I remembered.
“Please,” she whispered. “I need to speak to you.”
Jason saw her.
“Mom?”
She turned toward him.
For several seconds, neither spoke.
Then Elena looked directly at me.
“I’m sorry.”
Jason stepped forward.
“What are you doing?”
She ignored him.
“I should have told you years ago.”
His voice became sharper.
“Mom.”
Elena flinched.
That reaction told me everything.
She was afraid of her own son.
Daniel stepped beside me.
“Mrs. Mitchell, perhaps we should continue this somewhere private.”
“No,” Elena said.
She looked toward the reporters.
“Let them hear.”
Jason went pale.
Elena took a breath.
“Jason did not build Mitchell Medical Technologies.”
He shook his head.
“Stop.”
“It belonged to your father.”
The courtroom went silent again.
I had heard stories about Robert Mitchell.
He had supposedly died broke after a failed medical-device venture.
That was the story Jason had told me.
Elena shook her head.
“He didn’t fail.”
She looked at me.
“He discovered that his business partner was stealing from him.”
“Who?” I asked.
Elena swallowed.
“My son.”
Jason exploded.
“That’s a lie!”
Elena continued.
“Jason was twenty-three. He had access to the company accounts. He moved money through shell corporations. When Robert discovered it, they fought.”
Jason shouted, “You weren't there!”
“I was.”
Elena’s voice trembled.
“I heard everything.”
She reached into her purse.
She pulled out an old cassette recorder.
Jason stared at it.
“No.”
I looked at Daniel.
He understood immediately.
“Is there a recording?”
Elena nodded.
“Your father made it before he died.”
Jason stepped backward.
“He destroyed that.”
“No,” Elena whispered.
“I hid it.”
The room seemed to shrink.
She handed the recorder to Daniel.
“There is another reason Jason wanted you out of the company.”
I looked at her.
“What reason?”
Elena’s eyes filled with tears.
“Because you were getting too close.”
“To what?”
She looked at Jason.
“To the truth about Robert’s death.”
Jason stopped breathing.
I felt the floor shift beneath me.
“My father-in-law died of a heart attack,” I said.
Elena shook her head.
“That is what the family was told.”
“And what actually happened?”
She looked toward the courthouse doors.
“I don't know.”
Her voice dropped.
“But I know one thing.”
She pointed at Jason.
“He was the last person with Robert that night.”
Jason turned and walked away.
May you like
For the first time, he wasn't running from a divorce.
He was running from a murder accusation.
