CHAPTER 12 — THE REAL TARGET
Dr. Rowe surrendered through an attorney twenty-four hours later.
He admitted signing the false psychiatric evaluation.
Arthur paid him one hundred thousand dollars.
But Arthur had not originally asked him to evaluate me.
The first name on the paperwork had been my father’s.
Blackstone Harbor planned to portray my father as mentally incompetent before his death.
If successful, they could challenge his business decisions and force control of Bennett Ridge Capital into court-appointed management.
When my father uncovered the plan, they abandoned it.
After his death, Arthur reused the same strategy against me.
I was not the first target.
I was the replacement.
Dr. Rowe also revealed why the Cayman trust used my initials.
The account had originally been designed to receive money after my father was declared incompetent.
The beneficiary initials had stood for Charles Bennett.
My father.
After his death, Arthur changed the identity documents and kept the same initials.
The five-million-dollar transfer was not money my father had stolen.
It was a payment Blackstone Harbor had prepared as part of a fraudulent settlement scheme.
My father never received it.
Arthur and Grant diverted it.
The final page bearing my father’s signature was forged.
Every thread now led back to Arthur.
Brooke finally signed a cooperation agreement.
In exchange for reduced charges, she turned over a storage-unit key.
Inside the unit, investigators found boxes of records, burner phones, and a laptop Arthur had hidden months earlier.
The laptop contained a spreadsheet called Exit Plan.
It listed names, payments, and dates.
Next to mine, Arthur had written:
Obtain card.
Trigger emotional incident.
Activate medical authority.
Transfer shares.
Facility placement within 72 hours.
He had already selected the private psychiatric facility where he intended to confine me.
He had already arranged for a doctor to admit me.
He had already prepared a statement announcing that his “beloved wife” was receiving treatment after a breakdown.
Brooke had known.
She admitted helping him photograph my medication bottles and collect private messages that could be taken out of context.
“Why?” I asked her during a recorded meeting.
She couldn’t look at me.
“Arthur always said you thought you were better than us.”
“I paid your rent for two years.”
“I know.”
“I helped you after your business failed.”
“I know.”
“You sat at my table and watched him burn me.”
Brooke began crying.
“I thought once you signed everything, he would leave you alone.”
“No. You thought you would get your salon.”
She had no answer.
Before leaving, Brooke handed Victoria a sealed envelope.
“Arthur told me to destroy this if anything went wrong.”
Inside was a signed confession.
At least, that was what the first paragraph appeared to be.
Arthur admitted forging documents and moving money.
But the final paragraph blamed everything on Marcus Hale.
Then Victoria examined the signature.
“It’s dated six months ago.”
Arthur had prepared a false confession long before his arrest.
Not to admit guilt.
To control which crimes could be proven.
On the back of the paper was a list of three jurors’ names.
May you like
The trial had not even begun.
Yet Arthur already knew who might be sitting on the jury.
