Chapter 14 - The Voice That Lied.
Celeste stood with her back against the office wall.
"That is not my voice."
Elena almost shouted.
"It sounds exactly like you."
"So did your dead mother's voice outside the cottage."
That stopped everyone.
Gabriel looked toward Pike.
"Could audio have been manipulated eight years ago?"
Pike nodded slowly.
"Not this cleanly with ordinary tools, but the recording could have been altered recently."
Mara checked the file metadata.
"Created eight years ago. Modified yesterday."
Celeste exhaled.
"There."
Elena did not relax.
"Modified doesn't prove the voice is fake."
"No," Mara said.
"But it proves somebody touched the evidence after Isabel hid it."
Gabriel looked at the memory card.
"How?"
Bell answered quietly.
"Mrs. Reyes opened the broom after Mara disappeared."
"And then?"
"She gave it to me for one night."
Mara spun toward him.
"You had this?"
"I was supposed to take it to Pike."
Pike frowned.
"It never reached me."
"Because Hale found me first."
Bell's face tightened at the memory.
"He searched my car."
"Did he find the card?"
"No."
"Then who modified it?"
Bell looked at Celeste.
"I hid the broom in the service shed before Hale searched the vehicle."
Celeste had managed the estate service buildings for twelve years.
Everyone knew what that implied.
She shook her head.
"I never opened that broom."
Gabriel's frustration broke through.
"Then somebody in this house has spent eight years using every person's access while making every other person look guilty."
Pike nodded.
"That's exactly what a compartmented operation looks like."
Elena stared at the payment list.
"Hale is still the common point."
"Maybe," Mara said.
Elena turned on her.
"Why do you keep saying maybe?"
Mara looked uncomfortable.
"Because Hale isn't smart enough to build all of this alone."
Gabriel almost laughed.
"You think Marcus Hale isn't smart?"
"He's smart in a courtroom."
"That's generally considered useful."
"This operation is different."
Mara pointed at the network of shell companies.
"Someone has been rebuilding it every two or three years, changing vendors, changing jurisdictions, changing access methods, and anticipating audits before they happen."
Pike understood.
"An insider with operational access."
"Exactly."
Elena looked at Celeste again.
Celeste noticed.
"You can keep staring. It won't turn me into the villain."
"I'm keeping my options open."
Gabriel opened another directory on the memory card.
A folder titled ISABEL contained medical records and private notes.
One document caught his attention.
A psychiatric evaluation.
He opened it.
His mother's name appeared at the top.
The report claimed Isabel suffered from paranoia, memory problems, and delusional suspicion toward her husband.
Gabriel's face tightened.
"My father used this to discredit her after she tried to remove him from the foundation board."
Mara nodded.
"She told me."
Elena read the doctor's name.
Dr. Samuel Voss.
Pike reacted.
"Voss."
"You know him?"
"He signed fitness evaluations in two Northstar-related cases."
Mara searched the beneficiary list.
Voss had received over nine hundred thousand dollars.
Gabriel looked sick.
"My mother wasn't losing her mind."
Nobody answered.
He stared at the report for a long moment.
Then Elena did something she would not have imagined doing the day before.
She put a hand lightly on his shoulder.
He looked at her.
She removed it almost immediately.
"Sorry."
"Don't be."
The silence between them was brief but different now.
Not employer and employee.
Not protector and protected.
Two people realizing their families had been manipulated by the same machine.
Mara cleared her throat.
"There's another file."
She opened a video dated three years earlier, one week before Isabel Reyes died.
The recording showed Isabel sitting in a bright bedroom.
She looked thin but alert.
The camera was close.
Her voice was steady.
"Gabriel, if this reaches you, I failed to tell you the truth while I still had time."
Gabriel leaned toward the screen.
Isabel continued.
"Your father started Northstar, but he did not control it at the end."
Elena held her breath.
"Marcus Hale thinks he controls it now."
Gabriel whispered.
"Thinks?"
The video continued.
"The person who controls Northstar is the person everyone trusts to keep this family safe."
Celeste went completely still.
Pike looked at her.
Mara did too.
Isabel's next sentence came through a burst of digital distortion.
"His name is—"
The video froze.
The rest of the file was corrupted.
Celeste laughed once in disbelief.
"Of course."
Elena looked at Gabriel.
"Who did your family trust to keep them safe?"
Gabriel's eyes moved toward the stable through the office window.
"Not Hale."
"Then who?"
He answered quietly.
"My godfather."
Elena frowned.
"Who is your godfather?"
Gabriel looked at Pike.
Pike already knew.
"Sheriff Daniel Mercer."
Outside, the two county deputies suddenly raised their radios.
A vehicle pulled into the grounds office driveway.
May you like
The county sheriff stepped out.
Daniel Mercer had arrived personally.
