Chapter 4 - The Boardmember's SecretPanicked glances bounced across the table like ricocheting bullets. Board members shifted away from one another; Celeste Morgan pulled her skirts away from Leonard Pike, while Leonard scrambled back from his own wife.
“This is absurd!” Leonard barked, sweating profusely through his high-collared tuxedo shirt. “You’re taking the word of a disgruntled servant who’s holding us hostage! Richard, command your security to break down those shutters!”
“I told you, Leonard,” Thomas said calmly, “the security team works for me tonight. They’ve been paid five times their annual salary using Richard’s own Zurich funds.”
“You bastard!” Richard spat.
“Let’s talk about the lamb, Leonard,” Thomas interrupted smoothly, pacing toward the board member. “Or rather, the untouched sauce on your plate that Maya noticed earlier.”
Leonard’s eyes bulged. “What about my plate? I wasn't hungry!”
“You weren't hungry because you were nervous,” Thomas said, stopping directly behind Leonard’s chair. “You’ve been shorting Caldwell Global stock for six weeks through an offshore broker in Grand Cayman. If Richard Caldwell dies before the market opens tomorrow morning, your short positions will yield a return of roughly forty-two million dollars.”
“That’s... that’s speculative garbage!” Leonard stammered, looking around the room for support, but finding none. Even his wife was staring at him with newfound horror. “I shorted the stock because our quarterly earnings report was going to be a disaster! Ask anyone on the financial board!”
“The quarterly earnings were fine,” Victoria interjected, her tone dropping into a lethal chill. She wiped her smeared makeup with the back of her hand and stepped closer to Leonard. “Unless someone intentionally leaked fake audit reports to trigger a panic. Is that what you did, Leonard? Did you ruin my husband’s company just so you could afford your gambling debts in Macau?”
“I didn't poison him!” Leonard yelled, his voice cracking with desperation. “I swear on my children’s lives! I wanted him bankrupt, not dead! If he dies, the SEC investigates every major short seller automatically! Killing him ruins my entire payout!”
Maya watched Leonard’s hands. They were trembling violently, but his logic was horrifyingly sound. A corporate insider shorting a stock wouldn't want a sudden suspicious murder to draw federal regulators to their trade logs.
“He’s telling the truth,” Maya said suddenly.
Everyone turned to look at the young server.
“Why are you listening to her?!” Celeste Morgan cried out. “She’s a waitress who slapped the hostess!”
“I’m listening to her because she’s the only person in this room who doesn't have millions of dollars riding on my survival,” Richard said, his eyes fixed on Maya. “Speak, girl. Why do you think Leonard is innocent?”
Maya pulled up the video on her phone again. She zoomed in on the background of the pantry frame, past Victoria’s emerald-adorned hand dropping the white tablet into the decanter.
“Look here,” Maya said, placing the phone in the middle of the mahogany table so everyone could see. She pointed to a faint reflection in the polished chrome surface of the coffee urn behind the decanter.
In the warped silver reflection, another figure was visible.
May you like
The figure was wearing a black long-sleeved uniform—identical to Maya’s own.
“That’s impossible,” Maya whispered, her blood running cold as she realized what she was looking at. “There were only two servers assigned to the executive floor tonight. Me... and Sarah.”
