Chapter 6 - the missing twenty-two minutes
Melissa’s attorney called Lena before anyone called Melissa.
That told Noah everything.
“She knows we recovered something.”
“How?” Lena asked.
“Either Thomas warned her or someone inside our investigation did.”
Thomas bristled.
“I did not contact her.”
Noah did not apologize.
They moved the investigation again, this time into an executive apartment owned by Ethan’s logistics company. No assistants. No corporate counsel. No Hale Dominion servers.
Only family.
Thomas was told to go home.
He protested.
Adrian ended the discussion with one sentence.
“If you’re innocent, distance protects you too.”
By afternoon, Noah had reconstructed the night Victor died using traffic cameras, home security logs, parking records, and phone metadata.
Melissa’s car entered Victor’s neighborhood at 7:48 p.m.
Ryan arrived at 7:51.
Thomas claimed he returned after Victor’s strange call at 8:14.
His vehicle appeared at 8:23.
The emergency call was placed at 8:36.
Twenty-two minutes passed between Victor’s call to Thomas and the call to paramedics.
Twenty-two minutes during which three people were inside or near the house.
Ryan.
Melissa.
Thomas.
“What happened during those minutes?” Lena asked.
Noah displayed another timeline.
“At 8:18, Ryan’s phone connected to Dad’s private Wi-Fi.”
“So?”
“His phone downloaded 4.2 gigabytes.”
Adrian leaned forward.
“From where?”
“Unknown local device.”
“The hidden records room?”
“Possibly.”
At 8:21, Melissa’s banking credentials accessed Northstar.
At 8:24, Thomas’s board authorization token was used.
At 8:29, Victor’s private medical alert system registered a cardiac emergency.
Lena stared.
“He was in distress for at least seven minutes before they called 911.”
Ethan said quietly, “Longer if the alert wasn’t immediate.”
Adrian punched the wall.
Lena flinched.
“Stop.”
He looked ashamed.
“Sorry.”
She touched her belly.
The baby shifted beneath her palm.
For the first time since the assault, Lena allowed herself to consider something she had rejected all morning.
Her father’s death might not have been simple.
But suspicion was not proof.
She refused to replace one unproven story with another.
“Find what Ryan downloaded.”
Noah nodded.
Victor had used an offline home server that was removed after his death. Family counsel claimed it contained personal financial records and had been archived.
No one knew where.
Ethan called the storage company listed in the probate records.
“There was no server delivered.”
“Who signed the inventory?” Lena asked.
Ethan looked at her.
“Samuel Kerr.”
The missing attorney.
Again.
Adrian looked toward Noah.
“Find Kerr before Ryan does.”
Meanwhile, police requested a second interview with Lena.
Ryan had hired one of Denver’s most aggressive criminal-defense firms.
Melissa had submitted a written statement claiming Lena became violent after discovering the affair.
She described Ryan’s use of the cane as defensive.
Lena read the statement twice.
“Melissa says I tried to push her down the stairs.”
Ethan scoffed.
“At seven months pregnant?”
“She says Ryan intervened.”
Adrian took the document.
“This is garbage.”
“It’s dangerous garbage,” Noah said.
“Why?”
“Because Ryan also filed for emergency temporary control over the mansion and joint marital accounts. He’s claiming Lena’s brothers are coercing her.”
Lena almost admired the speed.
Ryan was not hiding.
He was attacking.
Exactly as Victor would have predicted.
Noah’s investigator called from Santa Fe.
They found Samuel Kerr’s house empty.
But a neighbor remembered him leaving suddenly three days earlier.
“With luggage?” Noah asked.
“No. With two men.”
“Police?”
“No.”
The neighbor had photographed the vehicle because it blocked her driveway.
Noah received the image.
A black SUV.
Colorado plates.
Registered to a security contractor.
Melissa Ward’s brother owned the company.
Lena stared at the screen.
“They took Kerr.”
“Or moved him,” Noah said.
“Where?”
The investigator searched the house.
Inside a locked kitchen drawer, they found a burner phone.
One recent draft message had never been sent.
The recipient field contained Lena’s number.
The message read:
Your father knew the Northstar signature was forged. I helped hide it. I can prove what happened in the study, but not over the phone.
Another unfinished line followed.
The person you need to fear is not Ryan.
Lena’s breath stopped.
There was no name.
But an attachment remained in the phone.
A photograph taken through Victor’s study window at 8:25 p.m.
Ryan stood beside the desk.
Melissa was near the fireplace.
And between them was a third person.
Not Thomas.
The face was hidden by the angle.
But the person wore a distinctive blue suit.
Lena slowly looked at the photograph she had taken that morning in Victor’s hidden room.
Thomas had worn blue.
So had someone else Lena remembered from the night of Victor’s funeral.
Someone who had disappeared from Hale Dominion weeks later.
May you like
Samuel Kerr.
👉 A recovered photograph proved a third person was inside Victor’s study during the crucial twenty-two minutes—but the image could not yet reveal whether it was Thomas Blackwell or the missing attorney Samuel Kerr.
