Chapter 3 - The Ghost in the File
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Corbin leaned back in his leather chair, his mind racing backward four years.
It had been a dark, frantic evening at the Stanford corporate headquarters downtown. Corbin had been thirty-four then, working as Vice President under his late father, Arthur Stanford. He remembered walking toward his father’s private executive suite late one Friday night to drop off quarterly site reports.
The door had been cracked open just an inch. Inside, his father had been standing near the fireplace alongside Corbin’s uncle, Marcus, and the family’s longtime senior attorney, Richard Sterling.
They were arguing in frantic, hushed tones.
“If the press gets hold of Prescott’s notes, the entire harbor development project will be shut down by the state!” Uncle Marcus had hissed, pacing back and forth.
“The boy had an unfortunate accident on site, Marcus,” Attorney Richard Sterling had replied smoothly, his tone ice-cold. “The police report is filed. The widow has accepted the basic settlement and signed the standard non-disclosure agreement. Ethan Prescott’s name will never be mentioned in connection with Stanford Development again.”
Corbin recalled stepping into the room back then, asking what they were talking about. His father had immediately slammed a leather folder shut and dismissed him, claiming it was merely a minor legal dispute with an independent subcontractor.
Two months later, Corbin’s father suffered a fatal heart attack, leaving Corbin to inherit the company without ever knowing the full truth behind that night.
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Now, staring at Lianna’s file, Corbin realized the horrific connection.
The widow who had accepted that silent settlement, the woman whose husband had perished on a Stanford construction site four years ago, was currently sweeping the floors of his house to buy baby formula.
