Chapter 6: The Day Patricia Almost Won
We met Patricia in the company boardroom the next morning.
She sat at the head of the table with Mr.
Pike, the family attorney, and five board members.
A security monitor behind her showed Emily entering Daniel’s office at night.
Patricia folded her hands.
“Would you like to explain why your fiancée stole company records?”
Emily stood.
“I copied a ledger Daniel asked me to examine.”
Patricia pressed a remote.
The video showed Emily placing a folder inside her coat.
“That looks like theft.”
Daniel faced the board.
“I gave her the security code.”
“After hours?” Mr.
Pike asked.
“Because my mother had started deleting files.”
Patricia laughed once.
“Now I am destroying evidence too?”
I placed Dr.
Shah’s letter on the table.
“You forged two DNA reports.”
She did not touch it.
“A laboratory director cannot prove who created them.”
Elaine entered behind us.
“I can.”
Patricia’s chair scraped against the floor.
“You were not invited.”
Elaine connected her flash drive to the monitor.
The screen showed Patricia seated at the bridal shop computer, printing pages with the laboratory logo.
“That image proves nothing,” Patricia said.
“I was printing insurance forms.”
Elaine opened her messages.
“You wrote, ‘Make sure Emily finds it before the ceremony.’”
Patricia turned to the board.
“This woman demanded money from me yesterday.”
“No,” Elaine said.
“You offered me twenty thousand dollars to disappear.”
Mr.
Pike lifted a document.
“Without independent verification, these messages may have been altered.”
Patricia leaned back.
For a moment, she looked untouchable.
“The board has already voted,” she said.
“Daniel is removed from operational authority, effective immediately.”
One member pushed a box toward Daniel.
“Your keys and company phone.”
Emily reached for him.
“Daniel—”
He removed the keys and placed them inside.
Patricia smiled.
“You chose her over your family.
Now you understand the cost.”
I took out Richard’s old appointment book.
“You made one mistake.”
Patricia’s eyes moved to it.
“The second report says Richard’s sample was collected on March 14, seven years ago.
He spent that entire week in a cardiac unit three hundred miles away.”
“That proves nothing.”
“The hospital kept visitor records.
Your name isn’t there.”
Mr.
Pike glanced at Patricia.
“You told me Richard handed you the sample personally.”
“He did.
I may have confused the date.”
Daniel placed an independent DNA report before the board.
“And this arrived this morning.
Emily and I are not related.”
Patricia stood.
“Private tests can be wrong.”
“The laboratory collected our samples in person,” Emily said.
“You watched through the window because you had someone following us.”
A gray-haired board member named Conrad opened the copied ledger.
“I have a question about these transfers.”
Patricia’s voice sharpened.
“This meeting is over.”
Conrad turned the ledger around.
“Four hundred eighty-six thousand dollars left Daniel’s trust and entered a consulting company registered to your maiden name.”
Mr.
Pike stared at her.
“You told us those were investment losses.”
Patricia snatched the ledger.
“They were authorized by Richard.”
She produced a signed transfer order and placed it before me.
I looked at the signature once, then pushed it back.
“Richard did not sign this.”
“You cannot know that.”
“Yes, I can.
He broke his right wrist two days before this date.
I signed every document for him for six weeks.”
The door opened behind Patricia.
A man carrying an investigator’s badge stepped into the room.
May you like
“Mrs.
Vale, please move away from the shredder.”
