Chapter 2 - THE DEAD MAN ABOVE THE POOL.
Arthur Vale stood behind the balcony glass in a white shirt and dark trousers, thinner than Adrian remembered but unmistakably alive.
Adrian stared upward while holding Elena safely at the pool edge.
“You buried him,” Elena whispered.
Victoria’s answer came quickly.
“Arthur needed privacy after his medical collapse.”
Adrian’s expression hardened.
“You held a funeral.”
“We protected the company,” Victoria replied. “Investors cannot watch a chairman lose control in public.”
Arthur disappeared from the balcony before anyone could reach him.
The mansion staff lowered the canopy and helped Elena onto the patio. Her body shook, but she remained conscious.
Victoria looked at the tangled tether.
“This was a terrible maintenance failure.”
Elena turned toward her.
“You stood beside the controls while the cover closed over us.”
Victoria’s voice became cold.
“Do not confuse fear with evidence. You were hired to evaluate the estate’s charitable accounts, not interrogate the family.”
Elena had spent three months reviewing Vale Coastal Foundation records. She had discovered that money donated for hurricane relief had purchased private waterfront properties.
Victoria had called the transfers “asset preservation.”
Elena called them theft.
Adrian demanded the pool-system logs.
The first staff member opened the control panel.
The primary remote had not initiated the canopy.
The second remote had.
But the registered owner was not Arthur.
It was Elena.
Someone had programmed the system to make it appear she closed the cover on herself.
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Then security footage showed her entering the control room at 3:12 a.m.
Elena had been asleep beside Adrian at that hour.
