Chapter 8 - Step Two
Investigators recovered deleted messages from Lucas's cloud backup.
Sophia:
STEP ONE WORKED.
Lucas:
Did he hit her?
Sophia:
Hard enough.
Lucas:
Then don't improvise again.
Sophia:
We need Step Two before the board vote.
Michael felt physically ill.
The board vote.
Reed Manufacturing had an annual governance meeting in three weeks.
A proposal involving expanded family voting rights was scheduled.
If Michael were temporarily removed as chairman before that meeting, control could shift.
Rebecca kept reading.
Lucas:
Emily needs to look unstable too.
Sophia:
Already handled.
Michael's eyes snapped up.
Already handled.
The sedative.
Emily's unexplained falls.
The kitchen recording.
Investigators obtained Sophia's pharmacy history.
Nothing.
Then they searched Lucas's records.
His elderly father had a prescription for the same sedating medication detected in Emily's blood.
Lucas had picked it up several times.
His father later told investigators pills had repeatedly gone missing.
Lucas denied taking them.
But the kitchen video placed him inside the house during one of Emily's episodes.
Then another deleted message surfaced.
Sophia:
She drank it. Waiting.
Lucas:
Don't stay too long.
Sophia:
Need Michael to see me helping her.
Emily covered her mouth.
Michael stood so quickly his chair tipped backward.
Rebecca remained calm.
“Sit down.”
“I want him—”
“Sit down.”
Michael stopped.
This was exactly what Sophia had counted on.
Rage.
Reaction.
Mistakes.
He slowly sat.
Rebecca looked at him.
“They built a case around your temper. Don't keep building it for them.”
Michael nodded.
That sentence changed him.
From then on, he documented.
He listened.
He stopped reacting before thinking.
The state investigation expanded.
Lucas faced scrutiny for forgery and conspiracy-related conduct.
Sophia's financial records connected her failing development to the timing of the scheme.
But then she struck back.
Through her attorney, Sophia claimed Emily and Michael had fabricated the entire story to avoid repaying money Michael supposedly owed her.
She produced a promissory note.
$6 million.
Michael's signature.
Rebecca examined it.
Another forgery seemed obvious.
Except this time, Michael went quiet.
Emily noticed.
“Michael?”
He stared at the document.
“That signature is real.”
Everyone froze.
Sophia had finally produced something authentic.
Years earlier, Michael had signed a family financing guarantee.
He remembered it now.
But the amount had been blank when he signed.
Rebecca looked closer.
If someone had filled in $6 million afterward, proving it would be difficult.
May you like
Then Michael remembered who had been standing beside him when he signed the blank guarantee.
Lucas Grant.
