Victor’s Last Bargain
Chapter 16 - Victor’s Last Bargain
The photograph changed the case.
Police assigned security to Emma and Grace. Whitmore moved its board meetings to a private location.
For three days, Victor remained hidden.
Then Emma received a call from an unknown number.
“Are you proud of yourself?” he asked.
She signaled to the detective beside her.
The call was being traced.
“I’m proud of Grace.”
Victor laughed softly.
“She embarrassed herself for you.”
“She freed herself from you.”
Silence.
Then his voice hardened.
“I can still end this.”
“How?”
“You withdraw the charges. You tell the board the recordings were misunderstood. I return the company shares and disappear.”
“You never owned my shares.”
“I owned the people around them.”
Emma looked through Caroline’s office window at employees gathered in the lobby. They were waiting to hear whether their jobs were safe after the failed sale.
“You mistook influence for ownership.”
Victor exhaled.
“You think Lila is innocent now?”
“No.”
“You think Grace will stay when the attention fades?”
“That is her choice.”
He had no answer for a woman who no longer needed certainty from other people.
The detective pointed to a map. The trace was narrowing.
Victor spoke again.
“I loved you.”
Emma closed her eyes.
Perhaps some part of him believed that.
“You loved the door I opened.”
“You would have lost the company without me.”
“Then I would have lost it honestly.”
A sound came through the line—a train horn.
The detective wrote a location and moved toward the door.
Victor’s voice became urgent.
“Emma, listen to me. I can explain all of it.”
She remembered how many years she had spent listening.
“No,” she said. “You can explain it to a judge.”
She ended the call.
Police found Victor at a freight station forty minutes later.
He did not resist.
He was carrying forged identification, a large amount of cash, and Emma’s wedding ring.
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When the detective returned the ring, Emma did not put it on.
She placed it in an evidence bag and signed her name across the seal.
