CHAPTER 5 — WHAT THE CAMERA HEARD
Victoria played the recording in her office.
Arthur sat at the breakfast table, scrolling through his phone.
Brooke stood beside the counter.
Her voice was clear.
“What if she still says no?”
Arthur didn’t look concerned.
“She won’t.”
“She’s been asking questions about the accounts.”
“That’s why we do this now.”
Brooke lowered her voice.
“And after she gives me the card?”
“We transfer the liquid funds. Then Marlene activates the loan.”
“What about Claire?”
Arthur spread jam across his toast.
“If she causes trouble, we use the evaluation.”
Brooke laughed nervously.
“You really think a doctor will say she’s unstable?”
“The doctor already signed.”
My hands curled into fists.
The recording continued.
Arthur explained that once he controlled my voting shares, he intended to sell Bennett Ridge Capital to a private investment group.
The sale would be completed quickly.
Employees would be terminated.
Assets would be divided.
The company my father had spent thirty years building would be dismantled in weeks.
Brooke’s salon was supposed to be a reward for helping him pressure me.
Arthur had not thrown coffee because he lost control.
He had thrown it because he believed fear would make me surrender.
Detectives arrested him the following afternoon.
He was charged initially with aggravated assault, financial fraud, forgery, and conspiracy.
Brooke was taken into custody later that evening.
Her attorney immediately requested a meeting with prosecutors.
She wanted a deal.
Arthur, however, remained confident.
At his first court appearance, he wore an expensive navy suit and smiled at the cameras.
His attorney, Grant Mercer, argued that I had manipulated private company records to create the appearance of theft.
He claimed that all transfers had been authorized verbally during our marriage.
Then he produced a recording.
My voice filled the courtroom.
“Arthur, use whatever money you need. I trust you.”
I knew the sentence.
I had said it three years earlier when Arthur wanted to repair the roof on his mother’s house.
But the recording continued.
“You may access my private accounts and company shares without further permission.”
I had never said those words.
Yet the voice sounded exactly like mine.
Arthur’s attorney submitted several additional recordings.
In each one, “I” appeared to authorize transactions connected to Aster Row Holdings.
The judge did not release Arthur.
But he ordered an independent examination of the recordings before allowing the prosecution to treat the transfers as unauthorized.
Outside the courtroom, reporters shouted questions.
Arthur looked directly at me.
Then he smiled.
He believed the recordings had saved him.
Victoria guided me toward the car.
“Those files were manufactured,” I said.
“I know.”
“How do we prove it?”
She opened the door.
“By finding the person who created them.”
That evening, a package arrived at Victoria’s office with no return address.
Inside was a flash drive.
It contained the original audio clips Arthur had used to construct the fake recordings.
There was also a single photograph.
It showed Arthur standing beside the person who had edited them.
The woman from the casino.
May you like
And on the back, someone had written three words:
SHE IS HIS WIFE.
