Chapter 10 – THE SHOT IN THE DARK
The silence in the basement was broken only by the steady dripping of a leaky pipe in the corner.
Arthur Pendelton descended the stairs with predatory slowness. His expensive shoes clicked against the wooden planks. The silenced pistol in his hand didn’t waver.
“How did you get in here?” I demanded, instinctively taking a step back to shield Walter.
“The front door was unlocked, Evelyn,” Arthur smiled, a cold, empty expression. “You really should be more careful in this neighborhood.”
“You’re working with Grant,” Walter realized, clutching the forged journal tightly against his chest. “Even after he screwed your daughter over, you’re helping him.”
“I’m helping myself,” Arthur corrected, reaching the bottom of the stairs. He kept the gun leveled at us. “Grant called me from holding ten minutes ago. He offered me a very lucrative deal. I retrieve the journal, I submit it to the police as an ‘anonymous tip,’ and in exchange, Grant signs over his remaining offshore patents to my firm.”
“You’re going to frame a dying man for a murder that never happened?” I asked, my voice shaking with disgust. “Just for patents?”
“Business is business, Evelyn. Now, hand over the book.”
“No,” Walter said firmly. The old manager stood his ground, leaning heavily on his cane, but his eyes were fierce. “If you want this book, Arthur, you’ll have to shoot me.”
Arthur sighed, a sound of genuine irritation. “Walter, you’re seventy-two years old. You’ve lived a full life. Don’t throw it away for a bastard child you didn’t even know existed until yesterday.”
He raised the gun, aiming it directly at Walter’s chest.
“Arthur, stop!” I screamed, lunging forward.
Thwack.
The silenced gunshot sounded like a heavy textbook hitting the floor.
I squeezed my eyes shut, waiting for the scream, waiting for Walter to fall.
But the scream didn’t come from Walter.
It came from Arthur.
I opened my eyes.
Arthur was on his knees, clutching his right wrist. The pistol lay on the concrete floor, five feet away from him.
Standing in the shadows behind the water heater, holding a heavy iron wrench, was Sarah.
She stepped into the light, her chest heaving, her eyes burning with a mother’s absolute fury. She had thrown the wrench with pinpoint accuracy, shattering Arthur’s wrist before he could pull the trigger.
“I followed you from the hospital,” Sarah panted, glaring at Arthur as he writhed on the floor in agony. “I knew Grant was going to try something. You stay the hell away from my family.”
Walter didn’t waste a second. He kicked the pistol across the floor, out of Arthur’s reach, while I ran over and grabbed it. I had never held a gun in my life, but I pointed it squarely at Arthur Pendelton’s head.
“Call the police, Walter,” I said, my hands shaking, but my voice steady.
“Already on it,” Walter said, pulling out his cell phone.
Arthur groaned, cradling his broken wrist. “You’re making a mistake, Evelyn. You think this ends here? Grant has offshore accounts. He has mercenaries on payroll. You can’t beat a billionaire.”
“He’s not a billionaire anymore,” Sarah said coldly. She walked over and picked up the black leather journal from where Walter had dropped it. She flipped it open, looking at the forged handwriting.
“This is what he was using to threaten Leo?” she asked.
“He forged my husband’s handwriting,” I explained. “He was going to frame Leo for murder.”
Sarah closed the book. A strange, almost terrifying calm washed over her face.
“He’s right about one thing,” Sarah said softly. “Grant will keep coming. As long as he has money hidden away, as long as he has influence, he will never stop trying to destroy us. Going to the police isn’t enough.”
She looked at me, her green eyes piercing through the dim basement light.
“We have to take away his power entirely, Evelyn. We have to take the company.”
“How?” I asked. “Vanessa moved all the assets offshore. The DOJ froze whatever was left.”
Sarah pulled her phone from her pocket and tapped the screen. She held it up for me to see.
It was an email, sent ten minutes ago, marked URGENT. It was from the lead federal agent who had arrested Vanessa.
Mrs. Mitchell, please report to the federal building immediately. We have located the offshore routing numbers for Vanessa Pendelton’s illegal transfer. But the accounts are cryptographically locked by a dual-authentication master password set up by the original founder.
I stared at the screen. “A master password?”
“Grant didn’t set up the original server architecture,” Walter realized, his eyes going wide. “Your husband did. Fifteen years ago in this very garage. The offshore accounts Vanessa used were built on the company’s original digital skeleton.”
“Which means,” Sarah said, “the password to access those billions of dollars… is something only your husband knew.”
Arthur laughed through his pain. “You’re chasing ghosts! Her husband is dead! No one knows the password!”
I lowered the gun slightly, my mind racing.
I looked around the basement. I looked at the workbench, the rusty tools, the faded calendar on the wall.
“Evelyn?” Walter asked. “Do you know it?”
I looked at the small, rusted tin box sitting on the edge of the table—the box that had held the diamond necklace.
I walked over to it and picked it up. I ran my thumb over the bottom of the tin.
“He didn’t trust his memory,” I whispered. “He always carved things into metal so they wouldn’t fade.”
I turned the tin box over. Scratched faintly into the rusted bottom, almost invisible unless you knew to look for it, was a sequence of letters and numbers.
L-E-O-1-9-8-5
“I have the password,” I said.
I looked at Sarah. “Let’s go bankrupt my son.”
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