Chapter 5 - A Seat at the Board.
Connor refused to disappear quietly.
He contacted the only board member his mother could not intimidate, retired judge Helen Ward.
Helen listened without interruption as Faith described the dishes, the report, the missing page, and the man outside her apartment.
"Cruel behavior is not automatically corporate misconduct," Helen said.
"But forged invoices are."
Faith handed her photographs of the ledger pages.
Helen studied Evelyn's signature.
"If these are authentic, someone has been draining company money through a dead vendor."
Connor asked for an emergency board meeting.
Evelyn arrived wearing white, not green, and smiled as though she had already won.
She denied authorizing surveillance and called the ledger a sentimental household notebook.
Then she produced a statement signed by Grant.
It claimed Connor had ordered him to retrieve company property from Faith's apartment.
"That is false," Connor said.
Grant would not meet his eyes.
Evelyn turned to Faith.
"Perhaps Miss Morgan misunderstood a routine request because she was under stress."
Faith touched the F necklace but did not lower her gaze.
"I understand a locked door, Mrs. Hale."
Helen requested the original vendor files.
The company's chief financial officer, Martin Vale, said they had been destroyed under the retention policy.
Daniel Reed suddenly entered the room carrying a sealed archive box.
"Not all of them," he said.
He placed bank confirmations before the directors.
The payments led to a trust called Green Harbor.
Its beneficiary was hidden behind another entity.
Evelyn's smile finally disappeared.
Before Daniel could identify the beneficiary, the building's fire alarm sounded.
Sprinklers activated across the conference floor.
Staff hurried toward the exits while water covered the documents.
In the confusion, someone took the archive box.
Connor chased a gray-coated figure into the stairwell but lost sight of him three floors below.
When he returned, Daniel was unconscious beside the conference table, breathing but unresponsive.
Paramedics found no visible injury and suspected a reaction to something in his coffee.
Evelyn stood perfectly calm beneath the flashing alarm lights.
"This is what happens when frightened people create conspiracies," she said.
Faith noticed a dark stain on Evelyn's white sleeve.
It was green ink.
The same ink from the hotel warning.
Faith stepped closer.
"You wrote that message."
Evelyn covered the stain with her hand.
"Be careful, Faith."
"Is that advice or another threat?"
Evelyn leaned near enough that only Faith could hear.
"It is the last kindness I will offer before Connor learns why your necklace belongs to me."
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THE NECKLACE AT THE SINK
