Chapter 3 - The Grieving Husband
By sunrise, Richard had become a national tragedy.
Every financial network in the country carried the same photograph of us from a charity gala the previous winter.
Richard stood behind me in a black tuxedo with one arm around my waist while I smiled toward the cameras in a silver dress.
The headline beneath the photograph changed from station to station.
TECH HEIRESS FEARED DEAD.
PREGNANT BILLIONAIRE MISSING OFF CALIFORNIA COAST.
HUSBAND DESCRIBES FINAL MOMENTS.
I watched from a bedroom inside Nora's vineyard house while Dr. Park checked my blood pressure for the fourth time.
Richard appeared on television at eight seventeen in the morning.
He had changed clothes.
The pale blue shirt he wore was one I had bought him in Milan after our third anniversary.
He had rolled the sleeves exactly the way I liked.
That small detail made me angrier than the tears.
"Natalie was fearless."
His voice broke at the perfect place.
"Sometimes too fearless."
I looked at Evelyn.
"He is blaming me."
"He is creating the first version of history."
Richard continued.
"She loved the ocean."
That was almost funny.
I hated deep water.
He knew that.
I had hated it since my father's body was recovered from the Pacific four years earlier after what everyone had called a sailing accident.
Richard knew I could barely stand on a dock without remembering the phone call.
Yet there he was telling millions of strangers that I had leaned out of an aircraft because I could not resist the view.
A reporter asked why he had waited before contacting authorities.
Richard's face tightened.
"I was in shock."
Another reporter asked whether the open-door configuration had been safe for a pregnant passenger.
Malcolm Voss stepped forward before Richard answered.
"Mrs. Langford was briefed fully before departure."
Mrs. Langford.
Not Natalie.
Not Mrs. Hayes-Langford, which was how every legal document identified me.
Just the name that made me sound like an extension of my husband.
Malcolm continued.
"She chose to release the secondary restraint so she could change seats."
"That is a lie."
The words came out so sharply Dr. Park stopped what she was doing.
Evelyn remained still.
"Say it again."
I looked at her.
"What?"
"Tell me exactly what happened with the restraint."
I forced myself back into the helicopter in my mind.
The noise.
The door.
Richard's hand on my arm.
"I was clipped in."
"Primary or secondary?"
"Both."
"Did Richard touch either?"
I closed my eyes.
Then I saw it.
A movement I had barely noticed before he pushed me.
Richard had leaned behind my right shoulder.
At the time, I thought he was steadying himself.
"He reached behind me."
"Before he pushed you?"
"Seconds before."
Evelyn's gaze sharpened.
"Which side?"
"Right."
She opened her laptop and enlarged a diagram of the helicopter cabin.
"The secondary release is mounted behind the right shoulder of that seat."
I stared at the diagram.
"He unclipped me."
"Most likely."
"Then the helicopter will show that."
"If the hardware still exists in its original condition."
The way she said it told me there was a problem.
"What happened?"
"The aircraft was moved into a private maintenance hangar last night."
"Why?"
"Malcolm reported a possible restraint malfunction."
"There was no malfunction."
"I know."
"Police let them move it?"
"The county investigators photographed the cabin first, but the charter company owns the aircraft, and the initial report still describes this as an accident."
"Who owns the charter company?"
Evelyn slid the laptop toward me.
The company was called Pacific Meridian Aviation.
Its registered owner was a holding company in Nevada.
That holding company belonged to another entity in Delaware.
And the manager listed on the Delaware filing was a law firm I recognized immediately.
Kane, Barrett & Lowell.
Victor Kane's family firm.
My pulse accelerated.
"Victor owns the helicopter company?"
"Not directly."
"But he controls it."
"Someone connected to him does."
I leaned back against the pillows.
My father's oldest business partner had signed an emergency board request less than an hour after I disappeared.
Now I was learning that the helicopter Richard used to kill me came from a company connected to Victor's family.
The room seemed smaller.
"How long has Victor known Richard?"
Evelyn did not answer immediately.
That hesitation frightened me more than a yes would have.
"Evelyn."
"Longer than you think."
I stared at her.
"How long?"
"I am trying to verify it before I say more."
"No."
I pushed the blanket away.
"You do not get to protect me from facts anymore."
She met my eyes.
"Your father hired Richard's consulting firm six years ago."
My mouth went dry.
Richard had told me we met for the first time at a museum fundraiser five years ago.
He had said he only knew my father by reputation.
"What consulting firm?"
"Northstar Advisory."
The name meant nothing to me.
"What did they do?"
"Corporate restructuring, executive diligence, special situations."
"That sounds intentionally vague."
"It was."
"Who hired them?"
"Victor."
I stared at her.
Evelyn closed the laptop.
"Your father terminated the contract after eleven weeks."
"Why?"
"That is one of the things I am trying to determine."
I could hear my own heartbeat.
"And Richard never told me any of this."
"Apparently not."
"Did my father know Richard personally?"
"Yes."
The answer cut deeper than I expected.
My father had been alive when Richard entered my life.
He had attended our first dinner together.
He had shaken Richard's hand at our engagement party.
And Richard had stood beside me at my father's funeral three months later while I cried into his chest.
I suddenly remembered the expression my father wore the first time I brought Richard home.
Not dislike.
Not warmth.
Recognition.
I had mistaken it for caution.
Maybe it had been something else entirely.
At nine thirty, Daniel Price called Evelyn through the secure line.
Daniel had been my chief financial officer for seven years and had worked for my father before that.
His voice was tight.
"They moved the board meeting to ten."
"On what authority?"
Evelyn asked.
"Victor claims market instability requires immediate action."
"Natalie's voting shares are frozen."
"He knows."
"Then what is he trying to do?"
Daniel hesitated.
"Install Richard as temporary family representative."
I reached for the phone.
Evelyn put it on speaker instead.
"Daniel, this is Natalie."
There was a long silence.
Then he exhaled.
"Thank God."
"Keep your voice down."
"Where are you?"
"Safe."
"Does Richard know?"
"No."
"Keep it that way."
Something in Daniel's tone made me sit straighter.
"What happened?"
"Richard came to headquarters at six this morning."
"He was at the coast at midnight."
"Apparently grief has made him efficient."
The bitterness in Daniel's voice surprised me.
"He asked for your executive access token."
"He cannot use it."
"I told him that."
"What did he say?"
"He said a husband has rights."
I almost laughed.
"Not to my company."
"He disagrees."
Daniel lowered his voice.
"Natalie, Victor has three outside directors with him already."
"Three?"
"And Lauren Beckett."
That name froze me.
Lauren was director of investor relations at Hayes Technologies.
She was thirty-one, brilliant in front of analysts, and almost aggressively loyal to Victor.
She had also been the woman Richard insisted I hire two years earlier after meeting her at a conference.
"Why is Lauren in a board meeting?"
"I do not know."
"Find out."
"I am trying."
A door opened on Daniel's end.
His voice changed immediately.
"I have to go."
Then he added one sentence before disconnecting.
"Natalie, someone was in your office last night."
The line went dead.
I looked at Evelyn.
"What could they be looking for?"
She did not answer.
Instead, she opened the leather folder again and removed a small black envelope I had never seen before.
My name was written across the front in my father's handwriting.
NATALIE - ONLY IF MY DEATH BECOMES RELEVANT AGAIN.
I forgot how to breathe.
"Where did you get that?"
"Your father gave it to me three days before he died."
My hands started shaking.
"You had this for four years?"
"He gave me strict instructions."
"What instructions?"
"Not to show it to you unless someone made a move against your life or your control of Hayes Technologies."
I looked at the black envelope.
Richard had pushed me from a helicopter.
Victor was trying to install him inside my company.
And my dead father had somehow prepared for both possibilities years before either happened.
Evelyn placed the envelope in my hands.
May you like
"Whatever is inside this may explain why your father died."
