Chapter 3 - THE VOTE WRITTEN IN ADVANCE
Vanessa’s attorney went on television before midnight.
He said Evelyn had fabricated an attack to stop a lawful succession vote. The sedative, he argued, came from Evelyn’s own prescription records. She had contaminated the glass and staged weakness so she could accuse her daughter.
It was a strong lie because one part was true. After her husband’s death fourteen years earlier, Evelyn had briefly been prescribed the same medication for insomnia.
The board placed both women on temporary leave and appointed independent director Naomi Blake as acting CEO. Roland was suspended pending investigation.
Evelyn did not object. If she demanded control while under suspicion, she would make Vanessa’s argument for her.
Forensic document examiners found the emergency consents used genuine digital certificates. Each director’s token had been activated from a ballroom table during the gala. Someone had captured the codes while staff collected phones and devices for “cybersecurity.”
The vendor that managed the collection service was Pike Event Security, a company owned by Roland’s nephew.
Roland denied knowing about forged votes. He admitted Vanessa asked him to lock the doors, but claimed she said it was part of a surprise product demonstration.
Vanessa produced messages that appeared to confirm his story. In them, Evelyn instructed Roland to cooperate with Vanessa during a “controlled board simulation.”
Evelyn had not written those messages.
The metadata led to a Merrick server accessible only to three people: Evelyn, Vanessa, and Chief Information Officer Aaron Vale.
Aaron disappeared the morning after the gala.
Before leaving, he downloaded a sealed archive labeled ASHFORD.
Ashford was the Merrick manufacturing plant where an air-control malfunction killed two technicians fifteen years earlier.
One of them was Evelyn’s husband—and Vanessa’s father, Daniel Merrick.
May you like
The official report called his death an unavoidable industrial accident.
The archive contained evidence that someone had falsified the report.
