Patrick walked toward the door.
“Bring your little video tomorrow,” he said.
“By noon, Regina will have no company, no house, and no reason to keep paying you.”
He glanced back at Evelyn.
“And you will discover that dead men make poor witnesses.”
When he left, the house became painfully quiet.
Regina remained on the floor.
I sat across from her, the unsigned hospital forms for my mother’s surgery suddenly heavy in my memory.
“Tell me everything,” I said.
This time, she did.
Julian had been her college friend and later the company’s internal compliance director.
He discovered that Patrick had moved millions through fake consulting contracts.
Arthur refused to authorize a full investigation because he feared scandal would destroy the company and the family name.
When Arthur’s neurological condition worsened, Patrick began preparing to seize control through the family trust.
Regina needed a legal spouse for one uninterrupted year to secure her voting shares before the competency review.
Julian agreed to marry her on paper and help expose Patrick.
He died after ten months and nineteen days.
The police ruled the crash accidental.
The company attorney, Martin Cale, produced a contract releasing Regina from all obligations after Julian’s death.
Regina later discovered that the death clause had not been present in the version she signed.
She suspected Cale and Patrick had replaced the final page, but the original contract was missing.
“Why use the same lawyer for my contract?” I asked.
“Because Patrick controls Cale,” she said.
“If I replaced him, Patrick would know I suspected them.
I needed them confident enough to repeat the fraud.”
“So you let them put the death clause in mine.”
Tears filled her eyes.
“I photographed every page before signing.
I installed cameras.
I hired an investigator.
I thought I could protect you while collecting proof.
Then Patrick learned about your mother.”
My stomach tightened.
“What did he do?”
“He had someone request her medical file.
The hospital flagged it and notified me.
That is when I started paying her bills directly and moved her surgery to a private surgical team.
I could not tell you without risking the investigation.”
“You could have let me choose.”
“I know.”
She did not defend herself.
That made it harder to stay angry.
“The locked room?”
Regina looked down the hallway.
Inside, we found no romantic shrine and no hidden lover.
The room held Julian’s case files, photographs of shell-company transfers, copies of hospital access logs, and a wall covered with dates connecting Patrick, Cale, and several company vendors.
On the desk sat the photograph I had found in her drawer.
Regina and Julian stood beside Arthur at a company picnic, all three laughing.
“I locked this away because every time I looked at it, I remembered that I asked him to help me,” she said.
“And he died.”
Evelyn entered behind us.
“Julian did not blame you,” she said.
She removed a folded letter from her coat.
Regina recognized the handwriting before Evelyn opened it.
Julian had written the letter two days before his death.
