The Report That Never Existed
Chapter 02 - The Report That Never Existed
Richard claimed the signature had been copied. He accused Sebastian of returning after years away to manipulate a grieving young woman and seize control of Bennett House. Several board members nodded, eager to believe the man who had signed their salaries for eight years.
Sebastian handed the report to Diane. The document listed a laboratory that had closed five years before Emma’s supposed DNA test. The investigator’s license number belonged to a retired insurance adjuster who had never worked on the case. Even the official seal was taken from another state.
Emma expected her mother to defend her. Instead, Diane whispered, “I signed the board petition.”
The words hurt more than Richard’s accusation.
Diane explained that Richard had shown her photographs of Thomas meeting another woman before Emma was born. He said a public scandal would destroy the company and leave hundreds of employees without work. He promised the transfer would be temporary until the truth was confirmed.
Richard placed an arm around her. “I protected this family while Emma was still a child.”
Noah stepped forward and opened his laptop. He had discovered payments from Bennett House to a consulting firm called North Crown Research. The firm had produced the false investigation and then routed the money into an account controlled by Richard’s brother.
More troubling, the payments began two weeks before Thomas Bennett’s fatal car accident.
Emma stared at the screen. The police had ruled her father’s death an accident caused by brake failure. Richard had been the last person to use the car.
Sebastian warned everyone not to make claims they could not yet prove. His evidence established fraud, not responsibility for Thomas’s death. But Richard’s behavior changed. He ordered security to remove Sebastian and Noah, then reached for the folder.
Emma grabbed it first.
Inside was a handwritten letter from Thomas. He had given it to Sebastian shortly before his death with instructions to deliver it on Emma’s twenty-fifth birthday if anyone challenged her identity.
“My daughter’s place in this family does not depend on rumor, blood, or fear,” Thomas had written. “It depends on the trust I created and the truth I recorded.”
The letter referenced a video stored in the mansion’s original security vault.
Richard said the vault had been empty for years.
Noah quietly shook his head. “It was accessed this morning.”
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A camera feed appeared on his laptop. It showed someone carrying a silver evidence box from the basement into the mansion’s service garage.
The person was Diane.
