Chapter 6 - A Dead Man's Ghost
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Claire Morgan stepped between Mary and my hospital bed, her laptop still open in her hands.
"Back away from my client, Mary," Claire warned, her voice dropping into a razor-sharp tone. "You are named as an co-conspirator in the assault report. If you take one more step, I will have Officer Thompson arrest you right here on the carpet."
Mary chuckled—a dry, raspy sound that made the hairs on my arms stand up.
"Go ahead and arrest me," Mary sneered, pointing a gloved finger at my bruised face. "It doesn't change what happened two days ago. Check your corporate ledger, counselor. Check who authorized the transfer of Sarah’s controlling shares."
Claire frowned, her brow furrowing in confusion. "The transfer failed. We locked the server protocols three weeks ago."
"Did you?" Mary taunted, leaning over the foot of my bed. "Look at the master ledger again. Check the root authorization key."
Claire quickly tapped several commands into her laptop terminal. The screen flashed bright white as the encrypted corporate registry opened.
I watched Claire's face as her eyes moved across the lines of code.
Slowly, the color drained from my attorney’s cheeks. Her hand froze over the trackpad. She stopped breathing.
"Claire?" I managed to choke out, my voice barely a whisper through my damaged throat. "What is it?"
Claire looked up from the screen, her eyes wide with unadulterated shock and fear. She looked at me, then back at the glowing monitor.
"The electronic approval for the share transfer didn't come from Beckett's account," Claire whispered, her voice shaking. "It was executed using a master administrative override."
"Whose key?" I gasped, pain searing through my chest.
Claire swallowed hard, her knuckles turning white as she gripped the edges of her laptop.
"The digital signature belongs to Richard Vance," Claire said softly. "Your father."
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I stared at her in absolute horror.
My father, Richard Vance, had been dead and buried in the family plot for four years.
