Chapter 6 - CHARLES LEFT A TRAIL FOR EVELYN
The texts stopped after the church.
That terrified Evelyn.
Then Mara discovered Charles’s phone was not actually sending them.
The messages came through an old encrypted family account Charles had set up years earlier for emergency travel.
The sender was using a laptop.
The access logs bounced through public Wi-Fi locations.
A library.
A bus station.
A motel.
A hospital lobby.
Charles was moving.
Why not call police?
Because he did not know who was involved.
Dr. Shaw had falsified medical paperwork.
The family funeral provider had processed an empty casket.
A private nurse had disappeared.
Charles believed Preston had more allies.
So he sent Evelyn clues.
The third message arrived twenty hours after the funeral.
ASK MARA ABOUT HAWTHORNE STORAGE 19.
Mara obtained a warrant.
Unit 19 contained:
original trust ledgers,
loan guarantee copies,
a laptop backup,
security footage from Charles’s study,
and a handwritten letter to Evelyn.
The footage showed Preston entering the study two hours before Charles collapsed.
He carried a bottle of bourbon.
Later, Grant entered.
Then left.
At 7:02 p.m., Dr. Shaw arrived through the side door.
Sixteen minutes before Evelyn found Charles.
The video did not show anyone drugging him.
But it destroyed the claim that Charles collapsed alone.
The handwritten letter was worse.
Evie,
If you’re reading this, I was right to be afraid of what the boys signed. I don’t yet know whether they mean to harm me, but Preston has started treating my death as a business solution.
Evelyn stopped reading.
Her hands shook.
Charles had known.
Before the collapse.
May you like
He knew enough to hide evidence.
Not enough to save himself.
