Part 2
By sunset, Daniel was performing grief for an audience.
According to the statement he gave authorities, I had ignored instructions, unfastened my harness to photograph the coastline, stumbled during unexpected turbulence, and fallen through an improperly secured door.
He cried during the press conference.
“My wife was everything to me.”
I watched from a private hospital room seventy miles away.
Amelia muted the television.
“He deserves an award.”
“He wants something more valuable than an award.”
My phone displayed seventeen missed calls from board members.
Daniel had already requested an emergency meeting.
He hadn’t even waited for a body.
That was his second mistake.
The rescue captain had contacted the Coast Guard, but at Amelia’s request, my condition had initially been withheld from the media while investigators secured evidence. Daniel believed the search operation was still looking for my remains.
So he became reckless.
The next morning, he entered Mercer Maritime headquarters wearing a black suit and my father’s gold watch.
He told the board that “continuity was Evelyn’s greatest priority.”
Then he produced documents claiming I had authorized him to exercise my voting rights.
Three directors nearly accepted them.
Then our general counsel asked one question.
“Why are these documents dated last month?”
Daniel smiled. “Evelyn wanted everything settled before the baby arrived.”
He thought that answer saved him.
It buried him.
Because Amelia possessed the originals.
And the originals had no signatures.
Meanwhile, investigators recovered the helicopter’s flight recorder.
Daniel had assumed a privately chartered aircraft would leave little evidence.
He was wrong.
The data showed no severe turbulence.
No sudden altitude disruption.
No mechanical event capable of throwing a passenger from the aircraft.
More importantly, the cabin audio recorder had captured voices.
Not perfectly.
But clearly enough.
“You should’ve signed the papers, Evelyn.”
And then my scream.
Daniel’s third mistake was Marcus Hale.
The pilot had been terrified of Daniel.
Marcus later admitted Daniel had ordered him to lower altitude and fly an unusual route. When Marcus questioned it, Daniel claimed I wanted photographs of the testing platform.
After I disappeared, Daniel leaned toward the cockpit.
Marcus remembered every word.
“She opened the door herself. That’s what happened. Understand?”
Marcus had a wife and two daughters.
He also had a conscience.
That evening, he walked into a federal investigator’s office with his flight logs.
While Daniel drank champagne in our penthouse with his attorney, Amelia showed me security footage from my office.
Daniel had entered after midnight three weeks earlier.
He opened my safe.
Photographed estate documents.
And removed copies of my signature samples.
I felt my unborn daughter move beneath my palm.
For the first time since the fall, I cried.
Not because I loved Daniel.
Because I finally understood the scale of his betrayal.
He hadn’t simply wanted me dead.
He had calculated the value of our child before she had even taken her first breath.
Amelia placed a folder beside me.
“We can arrest him now.”
I wiped my face.
“Not yet.”
“Evelyn—”
“He wanted my company.”
I turned the television back on.
Daniel was entering Mercer Maritime headquarters surrounded by reporters.
“Let him take the chair.”
Amelia slowly smiled.
Because that morning Daniel had called another emergency board meeting.
He intended to have himself formally appointed CEO.
And I intended to attend.
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