Chapter 3 - CALLING THE REAL PLAYERS
The following morning at 9:00 a.m., two people arrived at my home.
The first was Marcus Sterling—my father’s lifelong attorney and one of the sharpest estate litigators in North America.
The second was Detective Clara Ramirez, a senior investigator with the Denver Police Department’s Financial Crimes Division and an old university classmate of mine.
We sat around the large dining table, steam rising from three mugs of black coffee, as I cast my laptop screen onto the wall monitor.
I played the airport video from Gate 42.
Marcus stared at the screen, his jaw clenching as he heard Adrian explicitly detail the scheme to steal my father’s estate.
“That arrogant bastard,” Marcus spat, setting his coffee mug down hard. “He actually carried the forged land deed onto a commercial flight!”
“Is the video legally admissible, Clara?” I asked, turning to Detective Ramirez.
“Public venue, no expectation of privacy at an airport gate, crystal-clear audio,” Clara confirmed, taking rapid notes in her tablet. “It’s gold, Victoria. But criminally, we need to let them make the actual transfer attempt so we can hit them with grand larceny, wire fraud, and forgery.”
“They plan to finalize the transfer tomorrow morning at eleven during the corporate board meeting at Adrian’s firm,” I revealed, pulling up an internal calendar file I had retrieved from Adrian’s laptop backup.
“Adrian invited six major investors to that meeting,” Marcus noted, his eyes widening. “He’s planning to present Vance Capital’s new asset portfolio to secure a ten-million-dollar credit line!”
“Exactly,” I said, leaning back with total composure. “He wants to use my father’s stolen property as collateral to launch his new company with Julian.”
May you like
“So what’s our move?” Clara asked, a predatory grin creeping onto her face.
“We don't stop the meeting,” I declared softly. “We let him present every single slide. We let him sign the credit documents. And then... we open the door.”
